


Choral Composition

by Rococospade



Series: Before the nightmare [1]
Category: Bloodborne (Video Game), Original Work
Genre: Addiction, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Childhood Trauma, Corpse Desecration, Emotional Manipulation, Gallows Humor, Gen, Horror, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mystery, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Bloodborne (Video Game), Racism, Self-Harm, Unethical Experimentation, WIP, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:47:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 73,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28459266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rococospade/pseuds/Rococospade
Summary: Yharnum was never a friendly place, but it seemed to get worse every year, even for the people living it. Recently there was an outbreak of the blood plague, and the church hunters were busier than ever trying to stave off its worst effects. You could maybe venture out, in the daylight - but not after dark, and not on the days of the hunt.So against all advice Anastas is talking to strange hunters and considering going out of doors, of course. If his sister wanted him safe, she should have been around to keep him so.
Series: Before the nightmare [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2120991
Comments: 28
Kudos: 10





	1. Choir Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vasilissa is missing, and Anastas does not know what to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter summary: Vasilissa left a month ago, and Anastas is past worried... and then hears a tap on his window.  
> Unbeta'd as of posting. Happy new years!

Someone knocked on the window.

And that was the end of his peaceful evening. 

Rewind an hour. The house was quiet. Outside he could hear the faint noise of burning flame, far off shouts, and howling. It was dusk, not quite sunset, and the sky he could see through the drawn curtains was glowing orange. The lace fluttered in the air.

He had incense burning in the thurible - perhaps enough to last tonight. He’d been taught to ration it carefully, and caution had made him stingier than ever. He had been alone since the last Hunt. Never before had he gone so long with the house empty besides him. 

He kept the lights out. It was better, the church said, not to distract the hunters. It was better, his sister murmured, not to attract attention from those hunting. There was a difference between the statements, both carefully crafted. 

Once the sun fell there was no light to distract him. He could not write, or read. He knew some adults drank on this night, but he couldn’t imagine it. 

(Maybe when you got old enough your priorities changed?)

These were some of rules for the night of the hunt: stay inside, stay quiet, keep the lights low and the curtains shut. He had always known them. He imagined everyone in the world knew them - only beasts strayed outside, and beasts were for hunting.

He didn’t sit at the window. That would be - too close to a violation of the rules. But he was - looking for someone. So he didn’t sit far from it, either. They were just late coming home. Perhaps - perhaps they’d even happen by tonight. 

… of course, the door was barred. They’d have to call through that window, _Anastas, it is me. Take away the bar._

Which was… also against the rules of the hunt. But surely an exception could be made, after so long alone. 

So he was sitting - not _at_ the window, but near it. Enough that he could see a blurry shadow fall across the floor. He pressed his back to the wall and felt his heart skip - felt without seeing the eyes which were now peering into his home, and peeling back its layers in search of - something.

 _There are no beasts inside,_ he thought, and then, _please, only be Vasilissa_. He thought he knew the feeling of her gaze very well, that he should recognize it. But fear twisted things. Maybe… maybe that was her looking. 

Maybe if he only turned his head. 

His heart thudded in his throat. The smooth wallpaper was cold on his back, and he tried to press to it a little tighter. And the eyes kept _looking_. 

“Hello?” A voice called. They sounded human, and not unkind. The words made his skin crawl. 

(“ _Don’t tell anyone you’re in here. Don’t answer the door on the night of the hunt, don’t go to the window. Be quiet and they’ll leave, Anya.”)_

His sister had told him that for every hunt since he was old enough to remember. It was not his first hunt alone, but it was the first he’d been without seeing his sister for the two weeks prior. 

And so the voice at the window, while horrible to him, was also a temptation. He had not spoken to another person since Vasya had left.

The man sounded human. The beasts never managed that. And the huntsmen were never sober… And there were bars caging the glass.

He took a careful breath - the incense that kept beasts at bay was still burning peacefully outside. He could smell it. 

“Hello?” The voice called, a little less certain. “There’s a lantern…”

It… should be safe. Just to speak.

Before he could think about it again - before he could take his hand away from the window - Anya drew back the curtain and held his face near the glass. 

The man wasn’t immediately in sight. Anya caught the movement of cloth - his guest was standing against the wall beside the window. Anya took a step back and almost tripped over the rug. (His guest. Was it dangerous to think of this stranger as someone he should welcome?)

“Shit!” The man moved to the front of the window and grasped the bars, peering in at Anastas with his head tilted. “But you’re only a kid! Sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

Anya, who’d been horribly startled, pressed his lips into a thin line and did not acknowledge the apology. “What do you want?”

“… hah?” The man in the window cocked his head further. He had a veil that concealed his face halfway down to his cheeks, and sallow-looking skin. His lips were white, by makeup or by illness. “Not a Yharnamite, but still with that classic hospitality…”

“It’s the night of a hunt,” Anya interrupted him. “You should really go to shelter.”

The man stilled in the window. “That would be rather silly of me,” He said. Something in his posture shifted, and Anya couldn’t point to it - but it made him less hapless, more menacing, “Being as I’m a hunter.”

Anya stilled. He peered at the man, and then he unlatched the window and eased it up enough that he could catch the scent. 

_Blood_ and oil and rosemary washed over him. He opened his mouth to breathe it in deeper.

“… from the church.” Anastas realized, and peered at the man. “What do you want of me? I won’t open the door.”

“That’s fine,” The hunter inclined his head. “Be stupid of you if you did. But I was hoping you could point me the right way.”

Anya watched him and waited. 

When no response was forthcoming from the window, the hunter deflated a little. “Not much of a talker, huh? It’s fine… I’m looking for a huntress that used to live around here. Tall, dark and intimidating - you know her?”

Anastas chewed his lip. “Why are you looking?” He asked, because it was important. He could hear moaning and sobbing from somewhere down the road. 

The hunter shifted and looked towards the noise - then back to Anastas. Not a threat? Or just not a threat to him? It was hard to tell which the man had decided. 

“Well…” The hunter said, rolling the word around like it was a plaything and drawing it out in a way that was almost painful. “Seems like the beasts I’m hunting tonight are a little… bigger, than forecast.”

Anastas, who had been relaxing a little (nothing thrown through the window, no torch held out in threat) went stiff and still again. That was- that was bad. That was very bad. 

“And I was kind of hoping- like, you know, hunters usually hunt… alone,” the man drawled, “But backup, I mean. Against the bigger beasties. It’s a better shot than soloing it, right?”

Anastas had no attachment to this stranger. But he had heard stories of the beasts and he - wasn’t ungrateful, to the church. They were the reason he could-…

People like this let him stay safe inside on the night of the hunt. 

“She’s my sister,” He said, the truth spilling out of him before he could stop up the newest hole in his resolve, “But I haven’t seen her tonight,” He continued, a little breathless, and felt more than saw the man’s hopeful expression twist into a frown.

“Seriously?… tonight of all nights…” He sighed and leaned back a little from the window - without meaning to, Anastas leaned closer, until his forehead touched the glass. 

He could half-see the man and half-see his own eyes reflected in the window, dark and brown in a face with dark skin. The hunter was not like him - he was so pale and grey that he almost looked like the moon, with dark shiny hair twisted up in a bun close to his neck. 

“Stay inside.” The hunter gentled his voice. “I’m not taking off, so just… stay inside, okay?”

Slowly, Anastas nodded. He forced his fingers to loosen their grip on the window-sill.

The hunter watched him, eyes out of sight behind his veil. Anastas wanted to see them. You could tell a lot about a hunter by their eyes - but that was probably why the church wished them to stay covered. 

“… would you mind telling me about it?” The stranger asked, and raised a hand to reach past the bars. He pressed his gloved fingers to the window - Anya noticed that each was tipped with a steel claw, like the talons of a vicious bird. They clicked gently against the glass - it seemed the Hunter was used to taking care with them. 

He tilted his head at Anya and clarified, “When you last saw her?” 

That would have been… a month ago, give or take. The Hunt was always on a full moon. It was too easy to hide, those other nights - too many huntsman and Hunters had been lost to beasts on such excursions. 

Not… always as corpses found in the morning light. 

“She told me she had to do some work,” Anya said, and shut his eyes.

#

Vasya had had her hair twisted up into a bun, to keep the locks out of her face. Her desk had been overflowing with papers, and she was stuffing them - presumably the most important of them? - into a bag with little regard for where the rest landed. Loose pages fluttered around her piles of books, the stained wood of the desk and the dark upholstered chair, and even on the floor. They were left there - Vasilissa did not even glance at them.

Anastas remembered watching her with amazement and confusion - his sister never hurried.

Or, well, his sister rarely hurried. She was… the sort of person who expected the world and its problems to arrive at her pace, and not the other way around. He had seen her take measured steps up to the gates of the church during service, to the end of their watch to scold away the crows that plagued Yharnum, and once - to behead a Scourge-beast that had strayed far into the city. 

She’d been preparing to hunt it when it had come running practically onto their step. The neighbors had panicked and run inside, and Vasilissa had just - picked up her sword on the way to the door, and went out in her dressing gown to slay it. He’d heard her mumble ‘good, less walking’ as she went. 

(It had been so hard to get the blood out that they’d given up and turned the gown to cleaning-scrap.)

What could have her rushing? The wrongness of it scratched and gnawed at him. 

“I’ll be away for a few days after the hunt,” Vasilissa said, eyes scouring her bag. He couldn’t remember the time before she was a Hunter, so he had no idea what her eyes had looked like before. Now they were the color of the late morning sky, and faintly glowed. They did not look human by any stretch, but they were his sister’s, and they always regarded him kindly. Anastas thought them beautiful. They were like a promise that the Hunt would end. 

(And it did, but it always came back, didn’t it.)

Their parents hadn’t… liked Vasilissa’s eyes, he didn’t think. But it was hard to remember if they’d ever said so, or if they’d just seemed unhappy to have her gaze fixed on them. 

… sometimes, it was hard to remember their parents at all, or their other sister. Like he’d always existed here with Vasilissa, in a fine little house that was beginning to show signs of weather, alone. 

She’d never left him for more than three days before. “Vasya,” Anastas called, and watched her still. She turned her even stare on him, shoulders straight, as if she hadn’t just sent the study into chaos with her frantic packing. 

“Anastas,” She responded, and turned a little more to face him. “I’ve restocked the incense. You must remember to fill the thurible _before_ dusk, come the hunting-night. Do you understand me?”

“I can fill it now.” Anastas eyed her. 

Vasilissa shook her head. “Not tonight. It’s been threatening to rain all week.”

This was news to him. He nodded anyway. “Before the hunt, then.”

“Yes.” Vasilissa drummed her fingers on the desktop. “I’ve made an order to restock the pantry. It should be our normal courier. Let them into the vestibule, give them the money from the counter, and see them off again. Lock up the house. Stay in until I return.” She paused, looked him over, and took three strides to cross the room. Her hands, cool and weapon-calloused, cupped his jaw. “I might be longer, this time.” She warned. “I’ve left you money. You can order from the courier if you need to, but try to make what’s in the pantry last, alright? I… this month has me worried.”

It was a blue moon month. Normally that would not be enough to spook her, but perhaps there was something she knew that he didn’t. 

“I’ll take care.” Anastas promised. Vasilissa’s expression softened, and she leaned down to kiss his forehead. 

“I trust you. I will be back as soon as I can, Anastas. I love you.”

Anastas hugged his sister around her middle and pressed his head to the hard muscle of her chest, and shut his eyes. “I love you too. Come back safe.” He murmured, and felt her stroke her fingers through his hair. 

“I’ll do my best, lyubimoi.”

#

“And… has your sister been back?” The Hunter asked, in a voice that was gentle, but not unconfident.

Anastas was quiet for too long; the look on the man’s face he could scarcely see through the window, yet he was certain his own silence had been enough.

The leather drew away from the window glass. Anastas watched it go and felt his hopes dragging out of him and further and further away.

“You know my sister?” Anya asked, grasping for something that would keep the hunter a moment longer - and if he got information in the bargain, that would be better. “Or just know of her?”

The choir hunter paused and regarded him, head tipped to the side. “Know her. Haven’t run with her in a while, but yeah. I know Vaska.”

Vaska.

Anya had no idea whether Vasilissa was close with anyone at her work, he realized. He was still desperate, but now some wariness crept back. He knew nothing but that this man was a hunter - and that he knew _of_ Vasilissa. “Please,” He said, stopped. Reached through the bars and wrapped his fingers around the cold metal.

it was… the first touch he’d had in-

_Don't think about it._

The hunter tipped his head, tracking the movement, like a bird watching a worm.

“I don’t know… why she’s been gone so long.” Anastas admitted, “She’s never done it before. Please. If you could bring me word of her.”

The hunter brought up his hand. The leather brushed against Anastas’s skin, cold and soft from wear, claws held away from him at an awkward angle. The hunter could cover Anastas’s hand in his entirely. “I’m sorry." He said, voice rough on the words like they was unfamiliar to him. "I’ll… see what I can do.”

Anastas sagged against the windowsill, all of his energy rushing out of him. “Thank you. I don’t have much, but I-” he cast his gaze around and happened on a kit Vasilissa had left when she’d hurried out last. He grabbed for it.

The hunter made a startled noise. “You really don’t- oh…” he took a step back, swaying on his feet. Anastas carefully held the syringe of blood between the bars in the window.

“Whose is that?” The hunter asked. He sounded dazed.

Truthfully, Anastas didn’t know. “We’ll have to ask my sister. When you find her.” He said, voice softer than he meant. The far-off screams of the hunt intruded on their peaceful moment - and the sunset dragged on and on.

The hunter eyed him, then stepped closer again. His fingers wrapped around the vial, brushing the metal tipped claws against Anastas’s hand without drawing blood. “Yeah. I’ll come back if I get word.” He promised, and brushed the pad of his thumb against the back of Anastas’s hand. 

#

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to explore some of the stuff we get hints of in the background of the game, so here we are. I ended up using original characters from another story for the sake of convenience, and I don't know if any canonical Bloodborne characters will come up in any more than background mentions. This happens sometime before the game, when the church still had the appearance of controlling anything.


	2. From the Window

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anastas gets something he needs, and trades something dear for it. Then he has to face the consequences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for manipulative behavior, racism, canon typical violence, upsetting themes and imagery, etc. Anya isn't doing so hot. Also biiiig spoilers for canon scattered throughout, but I think that's probably a given to most folks.

The night drags on and on. He stays near the window with the red lantern, eyes shut, and tries to sleep. 

He smells fire and hears screaming. He doesn’t think about what it means. The beasts are fierce, but fiercer are the hunters… 

( _One could hope._ )

He quashes that voice with prejudice. It’s unhelpful. His thoughts linger on the man that came at the start of the evening. He thinks about it probably too long - it’s strange to him, and he starts to wonder whether if in desperation he’d dreamed it. Gods knew he hadn’t been sleeping well since his sister had gone away.

… the walls of the apartment feel like they’re closing in around him, pulsing like veins. His arms ache, and he wants - he wants the steady fortification of a cocktail. But he thinks of the strange visions the blood brings, and the far-off snarling. On the night of a hunt, that would be - no. It wasn’t safe. Instead he focuses on breathing. One, two, three…

It was quiet outside. … it shouldn’t be so quiet tonight of all nights. It was like the street was clear - no, like the entire block was… 

_(dead)_

… was _unafflicted_. 

Anastas opened his eyes. It was late, probably past midnight; the moonlight was the only illumination in his parlor, painting a pale swath over the hardwood floor and the thick red rug. A shadow broke into the shape, and Anastas felt cold sweat break out all over him. 

Someone knocked on the window. 

Heart hammering, tongue fat in his mouth, Anastas did not answer. 

“… hey?” Someone called, voice low and uncertain. “It’s me?… kid?”

Anastas chewed his tongue. “… hello, hunter.” He managed at last, rasping more than speaking.

He watched the shadow jump. The shape of the hunter’s hat… He hadn't had a hat before. Anastas would have noticed, when it had such an odd shape.

“ _Hey._ Shit, you had me worried. You fall asleep or somethin’?” 

It was sort of crescent, like…

… like the hats the Choir wore, wasn’t it?

“Kid?” The hunter prompted, again. Anastas tilted his head back, looking up at the lace drapes that floated over his cracked window. 

“I’m here.” Anya assured him, feeling the rawness of his lower lip as he spoke. What slipped out of him after was, “I didn’t expect you back.” He blamed it on his sleeplessness. 

“Oh.” The hunter paused a moment, swaying back and forth - from indecision or perhaps injury.

“Are you alright?” Anastas asked him, fingers twitching against his right thigh. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be okay.” The hunter leaned closer, wrapping his fingers around one of the window bars. “Look, I found out somethin’ you might wanna hear. Your sister… someone down by Oedon Chapel saw her with a hunter from a particular place…”

Anastas pushed himself off the wall and almost fell. He twisted and staggered up to look out the window, meeting the hunter’s - well. The veil that the hunter had covered his eyes with. 

“You- what?”

“It came up.” The hunter said, fingers squeezing the window-bar in arrhythmic bursts. “I helped out someone in the Cathedral Ward and she gave me a hand back, yanno?”

Anastas didn’t. But he thought of the blood he’d given to the hunter. There should have been two more vials in the box. “… I see. And what could I give you for the information?” He asked, lowering his voice in deference. 

The hunter hummed, and flexed his claws against the metal. “Ah? Well… I’d love to give it to you,” he said, “But…”

‘But’. 

Anastas felt his jaw tensing. “… of course I don’t expect it for free,” He said, leaving aside that he had little of value to a hunter.

The coins in the lockbox were shiny, but they only had worth to men in the daylight. His sister regarded money only so carefully because she needed to keep _him_ alive.

Yharnum was a wealthy land, and in such a place nothing could be given freely. There was always a ‘but’.

The hunter leaned into the bars. “Can I name a price?” He asked, voice almost playful.

Anastas swallowed. “I am at your disposal-” then, thinking better, he clarified, “Within reason.”

“… what’s reason, next to a missing sister?” The hunter mused, lips crooking up in a smile. It was one of the prettier threats Anastas could recall receiving. He wondered if this was how enemies who faced down his sister felt.

Anastas was reaching for the case of syringes he had when the hunter said, “I want a kiss,” And Anya's brain stuttered to a halt.

“You want what?!” Anastas stumbled away from the window on instinct and tripped on the rug, and had to catch himself from falling.

“Yeah,” The hunter said, slowly, as if he were warming to his own idea, “Yeah, that’s what I want. A kiss. Think you can pay the toll?”

“There’s a window in the way,” Anastas stalled, heart pounding. He couldn’t open the door on a hunting night. He-

The hunter leaned on his windowsill, his smile a slash of white. He traced a little line over the glass with the tip of his claw. “Push up the glass. There’s space enough between the bars.”

Anastas swallowed. His tongue felt too big for his mouth, and his throat swollen. He couldn’t do that. He-

He raised trembling fingers to the window and pried it up, watching the sash and not the hunter (not directly). He felt himself shaking all over - afraid of the night, afraid of his guest. Afraid of himself.

If there were information on Vasilissa, he couldn’t really turn it down. Not now. He just needed to be brave.

The hunter looked pleased with himself, leaning on the sill with one arm, his claws curved over the stone ledge. They scraped at it like he meant to sharpen them.

Anastas took a breath and leaned out of the window, until he was hovering with his face almost touching the barrier, and shut his eyes. He let his forehead rest on the cool iron. He waited a long moment, and he-

… he felt nothing. He heard, above the screaming of the hunt, a soft noise becoming louder. It was—

He opened his eyes to the hunter, close but not touching, and… laughing. ... laughing at Anastas.

The hunter’s mouth was stretched up in a smile of undisguised delight. “Wait, you were really going to let me do it?!”

At a loss of what to say, Anya only stared at him.

The strange man laughed harder. “Watchers above! I’m an unknown variable, you can’t just agree to put yourself where I can _touch_ you!”

“If you didn’t want it,” Anastas said a little mulishly, his pride hurting even when he knew he hadn't wanted to kiss- well, it didn't matter. The sting of mortification was still there. “Then why on earth did you ask? Of course I took you at your word!”

“To see what you'd do, kiddo.” The hunter leaned in, lips still twitching, gleeful. “I had no clue you'd _agree_.”

Anastas wanted _very badly_ to shut the window on him. His fingers twitched toward the sash before he could stop himself — he took a breath and struggled to speak over a potent cocktail of mortification and growing anger. “Then what do you want?” 

The hunter hummed, like he had to think about it again, and scraped his fingers lazily against the metal bars. “Could I have a look at you?” He sounded thoughtful.

Anastas leaned back from him. “I’m - right here.” He said, searching the hunter. Could he not see through the veil? Or was it another jab at his expense?

“I meant-” The hunter paused, chuckled to himself, and reached for the lamp on his belt. “I meant in the light. D’you mind my looking?”

 _Oh_. Anastas frowned at him and crossed his arms, considering whether continuing to humor the man was worth the trouble. 

… in the end, it was probably better to be stuck with someone than no one, even if they were the sort of person he wanted to slap. Just a little bit. 

“… I suppose not,” Anastas watched the hunter unclip his lantern. When the light was raised to eye-level, he averted his gaze and tried his best to stay still.

The hunter examined him, lips pressed in a thin line which seemed uncharacteristic to Anastas. It was strange, thinking a hunter being serious was unusual, but this man was so far from grim that the thought stuck in his head, anyway. _He seems like a different person_.

And then once Anastas had that thought, he couldn’t help having another:

 _If there are two_ … _Which version of him is real?_

The hunter let out a low sigh, then resumed his servant’s smile. “Oh, wow. You're going to be a looker in a few years, kid. Got your sister’s lovely features but without her terrifying rage.”

… no. “About her.” Anastas promoted, staring at the hunter with his brows furrowing. “You promised.”

“Of course.” The hunter leaned back from the window and shifted from slinky friendliness to something businesslike. “She was seen walking with a man in a black hood. Chains clinked when he walked. Follow?”

Anastas’s fingers tightened on the window. “… Yes. I… she said to avoid those people.” He murmured, and turned his face down. That sounded like a monster from a bedtime story, one Vasilissa had told him often as a child and sometimes reminded him of even still. 

The hunter smiled at him, thin and unhappy. “But there you have it. I suppose if I want her help tonight… then I'd better go looking.”

Anastas’s heart stuttered. “You’d look for her?”

“Well. I do need her help.” The hunter sighed. “Though there is a time limit.”

Anastas’s fingers tightened on the windowsill. “Will you bring me word? If you find something else of her?”

The hunter shifted from foot to foot, like he was thinking about it. Eventually he sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “… can’t say no to that face, can I.”

Anastas didn’t know what face he was making, but he supposed it was pathetic indeed, and spent a moment to be grateful for it.

“Sure. I’ll come back if I get word. But don’t stay up waiting, I don’t want to promise anything.” The hunter began turning away, and Anastas looked at the table near the window. He grabbed for the case sitting on it. 

“Wait.” He requested.

The hunter stopped and waited. He turned as Anastas held out another syringe between the bars.

“If the first helped,” Anastas said, then paused, uncertain.

The hunter stared at the vial, lips pressing thin. 

Anastas felt his heart stutter again. Was there something wrong with the blood…? Had he offended-

-the hunter closed his fingers around the needle.

“Yeah,” He said, while Anastas tried to get his heart to beat slower. “Yeah. It was useful. I’m sure this one will be, too.” He stared at the vial in his hands, and then back at Anya. His voice, when he spoke, had gone cold. “… stay inside, kiddo. Hunt’s still on.”

Anastas brought his fingers back through the bars and rubbed them together until the numbness was gone. 

He watched the hunter disappear into the night, then eyed his case. 

One vial remained. 

#

He rationed it. He gave himself a little bit that night, but kept most of the vial full. His skin bruised dark purple around where the needle had slid in, an aching little cloud of reminding.

The hunter didn’t come back that night. Anastas didn’t forget him - rather he began to regard the memories of the choir member with the same anxious obsession as those of his sister.

Where was he? When would he come back? He would come back… wouldn’t he?

Of course, the one obsession was tied with the other. Anastas wanted… he wanted answers, of course he did. But he would happily forgo any knowing at all by now, if only it would bring Vasilissa home.

#

In the end it didn’t matter what he wanted or how carefully he rationed - the night of the hunt ended and the week went on. The hunter didn’t return, and the vial got lower and lower until it was out.

His sister had always obtained their blood supply, when she was home. Anastas knew the theory behind restocking it - one could go to the church for blood ministration and pay a tithe for it. Or one could… go to the red-light district, some time after dark, and pay someone else for the privilege.

… of course, the good women of the red-light district were more discreet than the church, if his sister was to be believed. And they probably asked fewer questions. 

He took some money from the lockbox and decided he’d leave around dusk.

In sixteen years, Anastas could only remember leaving the house a handful of times - always close to his sister, with her strong fingers curled around his like a shield. He rarely went out by himself, and he shied away from the neighbors. It wasn't that he didn’t like people… But his skin made him something of an oddity, and people made a game of it - guessing where he was from, or his parents.

It wasn’t a fun game, nor a particularly nice one. And while all of it was old to him, some of the guesses got heated and snide. The locals didn't seem to tire of it, or care that he was born and raised there the same as they had been. They especially did not want to hear that he didn’t want to hear it. 

… all in all it was tiresome, and their leering made him feel like prey. So he avoided it as much as he could.

There were good people in Yharnum, of course. He just… hadn’t met many of them.

… hopefully he wouldn’t deal with any of it tonight. It was past dark, after all. He took a lantern and hung it on his belt, then stepped out of the door. 

The cobblestones clicked and shifted under his feet when he wasn’t careful enough. He made a game of it, testing for sturdy footholds, trying to avoid the loose stones on his way through the Cathedral Ward, heading for - _that_ neighborhood.

The shadows of the city at dusk made him nervous. He skirted them, unwilling to court the risk of something unseen. The lantern light was better than nothing, but it only illuminated a small space around him, and the ground was treacherous. His pace slowed as the sky darkened - by proper nightfall he was moving at a slow walk and tensing from every sound in the night.

He could see people slumped against walls and sprawled on the ground - drunk by the smell - and was careful to stay clear of them, afraid of what should happen if they woke.

(What they should want with him, a boy of sixteen with barely any money, was beside the point. Only that they might want.)

The street he needed was down a narrow flight of stairs, in a dark alley that stunk of booze and blood - the smell made his mouth water. Red lanterns speckled the windows - he approached one without the noise of… business being conducted inside, and called out in a voice as gentle as he could manage, “Is anyone there?”

From a few doors down, he could hear a man moaning. And slapping sounds, like- he flushed. 

_Don’t think about it._

He forced himself to focus on the window he was standing at, his cheeks burning, until he saw the curtains shift. A woman appeared on the other side, back-lit and elegant, lips twitching in a smile that was inviting and - hungry. 

“Hel _lo_ ,” She leaned onto the sill and fixed dark lovely eyes on him. It was an effort to keep his gaze at face level. “Can I…” The woman lost some of her air when she examined him closer.

Anastas shifted from foot to foot. 

Eventually, the woman said, “Can I help you?” In a much less distracting voice. Then, “I don't do kids, sorry.”

Anastas felt his cheeks flame. He thought that if he addressed that, he might actually combust, so he just dropped it entirely. “I was hoping to buy some blood,” He said, struggling to meet her gaze. “Please. I’ve- I've run out.”

“What…” the woman leaned back from him, eyes narrowing. “An addict?”

He couldn’t deny that. “I’m ill, ma’am.” he said, “I can pay. I’ve money. So- please?” He gave her his best pleasing look, though with such little light he had no idea if she could see it - nor could he read her face in turn.

She hesitated a very long moment, then sighed. “Fine. Payment first, and I'll give you a vial.”

That seemed fair enough. “How much?” Anastas asked. The woman hesitated again.

“Ten gold. Per vial.”

… Anastas realized he had no idea if this was a fair rate at all. It seemed sister caring for him had left him bereft of a good deal of useful knowledge…

Well, at this hour, it wasn’t worth worrying over. He could pay the fee and go home, and perhaps try again tomorrow. He reached for the pocket of coin and removed ten glittering pieces to pass through the window bars.

The woman inside made a soft noise when she saw them, like she hadn’t expected anything to come of the deal.

Anastas watched her take them and put them aside, then heard the soft clink of her lifting something from a table. She drew blood from her arm in the half light and capped the syringe, then turned back to pass it through to him. “Thank you for your business,” She said, matter of fact, worlds from the sultry tone she'd made introductions with. “Get yourself indoors, child.”

“Thank you.” Anastas said, “I will. Good evening.” He turned to hurry away.

A little ways down the street, a door swung open. Anastas’s heart jumped, and he hurried for the stairs, glancing back to see what would emerge.

He wasn’t sure… what he was expecting. But a man in fine clothes striding out as if he hadn’t a care who might see him emerging from a house of ill repute.

The man looked up. He had a wide-brimmed hat and a high collar, and Anastas could see the bright reflection of his eyes in the waning moon’s light.

 _Hunter_.

A hunter in the street with him was very different from one approaching his window. Anastas moved to the side, hoping to avoid the man’s path and, thereby, his notice.

The hunter walked for the same stairs he was on and strode up them, boots making clipped noises against the cut stone. His eyes caught on Anastas and lingered there. Anya could not see his mouth. 

His heart pounded and fluttered in his chest, and he ducked his head in a bid for politeness, but also to avoid looking at the man directly. He had the same startling blue eyes as Vasilissa, and looking at them - hurt.  
The hunter paused beside him, instead of walking. He had no weapon drawn, but that was little comfort when Anastas could see the gun hanging holstered on one hip, and a spear slung across his back.

He stayed still, trembling. “Good… good evening, brave hunter.” He said, since flattery was rarely amiss.

The hunter leaned closer. Anastas felt hot breath against his hair and startled a moment when he realized the man was _sniffing_ him.

“… sir?” He prompted, struggling to figure out the correct response to someone sniffing his hair.

The hunter sighed, long and disappointed. Like he’d been expecting something different and found things lacking. Anastas didn’t know how to feel about that at all.

“Sir?” He tried, considering whether it was worth it to run when he knew hunters could outstrip civilians in a few steps every time. It was possible the man was blood-drunk and couldn't keep up. 

… if the man was blood-drunk running might lead to worse things, actually.

“Not who I thought.” The hunter mumbled, and then, “They really get younger every year…” Then, to Anastas’s bewilderment (and it had to be said, relief), the hunter turned to walk away. Or- staggered, a little.

Anastas watched him go with his brow furrowing. What was that about?

… the path home wasn’t getting any brighter. He supposed if the hunter wasn’t going to make trouble he really ought to just go. 

He played the same game with the cobblestones as he had the first time, on double time, working his way back to uptown from the red-light district. By the time he reached his street it was well past midnight - and went he came to his door, he broke into a cold sweat.

The heavy wooden door swung open, in front of a yawning dark portal. The latch was on the step with heavy scuff marks along it. Someone had forced it open.

#

Anastas could not go inside the house. He had no idea what could be waiting for him in the dark - the beasts did not restrict themselves to the hunting night, and one roaming during the waning moon would be hungry.

It would be safest to go to the church and come back in the morning.

He turned away from the house and peered at the shape of the Grand Cathedral, which loomed so tall that its towers scratched the clouds. The doors to it were always open, with at least one Church hunter in residence. He should be safe there.

… something clicked on the cobblestones of the alley beside his house, and he amended, _if only I can get there_.

He looked down the alley and saw something small and furry, shuffling around in the waste. Only a rat.

… it was probably just a thief in the house, he told himself, too. Disturbing, yes. Dangerous. But not a beast that would smell his blood and come looking for him.

He told himself this just as he rounded the narrow corner to a sidestreet and came face to face with a man looming over a lump on the ground. The man’s head swung up, and their eyes met. Time seemed to stop.

Anastas saw… Bandages on the stranger’s face, like he was injured, leaving an eye and his nostrils and his lips free. Black staining the gauze and linen, running down his chin, dripping off, sullying the tattered rags he wore. 

He must have been a beggar and yet - he had a pistol clasped in his right hand.

Anastas did not dare look lower than the barrel of that gun. If he did, he would see something he could not look away from. He took two steps back. The beggar rose up, lips twitching into something - amiable. 

Amiable was not the word for such a situation, but there they were.

“You startled me,” The beggar said, in a neat and sober voice, “Could have given me a heart attack- hmm? What’s with that face?”

Anastas took another step back and glanced to the side. He realized the street was dark except for the moonlight. No windows were illuminated - probably none were even open.

 _Either they don't want to know what's happening, or they’re all_ -

He ran.

Behind him he could hear a curse, and a laugh, and then the sound of someone dashing after him. Anastas went for the paths he’d avoided hours before - the loose stones, the potholes, the piles of trash. 

His pursuer howled and catcalled, dashing down the road behind him with no semblance of grace or humanity. Anastas could barely hear it over the pounding in his ears - it was so loud it was deafening, the screaming and the pounding and the naked fear.

He kept an uneven path, zigzagging through the toughest parts of the alley and across the street, and heard a crash and a yowl behind him. He jumped over a rat, bloated from its meal, and could swear he saw each hair on its hide as he passed over it. He dashed into another street.

He slammed into someone so suddenly that a scream ripped from his throat, and startled the both of them, before he hit the ground in a sprawl.

The smell of blood hit him. Anastas threw his hands up to shield his face, trembling on the ground, too stunned from pain to think of moving any more.

… death didn’t come.

“Kid?” The unfortunately wall-like stranger sounded bewildered. “What the hell’s got you running?”

Anastas chanced a glanced up.

A choir hunter stood above him in full regalia, blindfold helm, cape and shawl, a Kirk hammer held in their hand.

He was lucky, he realized, that that hammer had not come down on _him_.

“There was a man-” Anastas started, stopped. “A creature - it chased…”

He heard something crunch and shatter in the alley he’d come from. He choked off a shriek. His blood ran cold, and the words died in his throat. His legs rebelled against him when he tried to get up, leaving him to stumble back to the ground. Anastas gave up walking and crawled away from the noise inside, wincing and biting his tongue against every jarring pain that raced through him when his hands or knees came down..

Behind him he heard the hunter made a low noise - heard a metallic swish and snap as something adjusted.

Someone walked away.

There was a shout from the alley, and then the night exploded with noise.

Snarling. Weapons fire. The crash of blades on stone, and the heavy thud of a hammer’s strike.

Anastas dragged himself to a stoop surrounded by pungent refuse, and hoped the stink wouldd conceal the scent of his bloody hands.

His entire body ached- he imagined he was another bag of trash that had been tossed in the pile. He breathed through his mouth, slow and quiet, his ribs aching, and tried to avoid smelling anything. His heart thundered in an uneven tattoo, and every noise from the alley seemed to throw it out of rhythm just as it was trying to beat normally again.

There was a short, furious scream that faded to nothing, and then - silence, the unnatural silence where everything alive holds its breath, and prayed not to be noticed.

He heard the soft crunch of boots from the alley and cowered. He held his breath and wanted to shut his eyes, but he needed to see if he had to run.

The form that rounded the corner into the moonlight did not stoop. They looked almost graceful, the way their clothes swung as they moved. Their chin was held high. They did not sheath the blade they held when they looked from side to side and caught sight of him. But their steps faltered.

Well. Anastas supposed perhaps they'd never seen someone hide in a puddle of trash and - he didn’t want to think of what else. He refused to show shame for it. He wanted to live.

The hunter took two steps closer, leaving him acres of room to - 

_To run_ , Anastas realized. 

“Hey,” The hunter called, a little too gently, then cleared their throat and sounded less like they were talking to a scared animal. “Hey, it’s safe now. You can come out.”

Anastas wasn't sure he could come out, as it happened. He did want to. But he… He remembered trying to stand. He put his hand on the stoop and tried to lever himself to his feet.

It felt like he was carrying a sack of rocks over one shoulder. Gaining his footing was a struggle against those rocks - hauling them uphill, and each move sent shocks of agony through him.

 _You can’t fall here. He’ll leave you,_ his mind told him, urgent, then: _you have to live._

Anastas swayed on his feet. He staggered over the piles of trash, and the hunter caught before he could fall again. He saw their lip pull back in a grimace of disgust, their nostrils flare, and waited to be released.

“I'm sorry,” Anastas rasped, “I can walk,” He said, though he meant in his heart _I have to._

The hunter shook his head. “You’re something else.” He said, in a tone that Anastas could not make sense of. And then: “come on. I’ll walk you home.”

… home. Home sounded good. 

#

.… of course, the reality of home crashed down on him when they reached the steps.

His door was broken, someone might still be inside, and his sister was-

… yeah. Yeah, home wasn’t much good to him at all just then.

The hunter paused at the bottom of the steps and put a hand on Anastas’s shoulder, to his honest surprise. His nice gloves would be sullied by- 

Claws pricked Anastas, and he startled back to himself and looked at the hand more carefully, and then the hunter.

The male choir hunter, with the fine-boned face and the moon-pale flesh. Oh.

Anastas felt relief. Well, mostly relief. There was a healthy and unpleasant mix of abject horror stewing around his mind. “I-I’m so sorry,” he started, and the claws pricked him again. He shut up.

The hunter was peering through the darkness of the door like he could see something inside (which was, altogether, ridiculous - there weren’t even holes in the helm for him to see through… or Anastas didn’t… think there were.)

(… now he wanted to look.)

“It’s not safe here,” The hunter decided, in a brisk tone that did not brook argument. “You'll sleep at the church.”

“I-… yes. That's probably best. Thank you.” Anastas said, getting weaker with every word. All the dread that he hadn’t felt that night - and how there could be so much left when he’d been so afraid already boggled him - crashed in, threatening to draw him under.

The choir hunter steered him towards the Grand Cathedral. They took the main road, like Anastas should have, and like he’d been afraid to.

There were people out, but they did not look at them, and they skirted the hunter with the same care Anastas had sidestepped the shadows.

The hunter did not seem to be afraid of anything. His walk was even and brisk - he surveyed the streets with an unchanging, mild expression, and he nudged Anastas along with no more difficulty than a shepherd herding one one little sick lamb along.

Well _. I feel about as strong as one._ Anastas thought, a little bitter. He couldn't walk properly with the pain racing through his knee. So he ended up with an inelegant, staggering limp.

He didn’t think the hunter had suffered any injury in the confrontation. He was… a little envious.

The steps of the grand cathedral loomed ahead of them. Anastas had never been inside, to his memory - but his sister said he’d underwent blood ministration before, so at some point he must have gone.

“First time this close?” The hunter supposed, though Anastas couldn't say how. Maybe he’d gone tense or something. 

“It’s a lot.” the hunter said, and then, “No shame being a little breathless.” Then he laughed, like he’d told some secret joke, and placed his hands carefully on Anastar’s ribs and hip to help him up the steps.

The idea of sullying white church robes made Anya want to be sick, mostly because he was sure the cost of replacing them would exceed the contents of his lockbox. But he wouldn't make it to the top before dawn left alone. (If left he might actually just curl up and die in the body that failed him.)

… he was so, so tired.

“just a little further,” The hunter coaxed, when Anastas slowed. Whenever he slowed. The hunter would murmur it, and push on his back, and Anastas would stagger another few steps before they had to repeat it.

The hunter abandoned hun, briefly, to press open the doors. Anastas stared up at them and forgot to breathe.

They were so big. Bigger than his house - the biggest thing he had ever seen besides the cathedral they led into. They had to have opened by a mechanism. Even a hunter couldn’t possibly be that strong… 

And the wood was all stained dark and carved with beautiful flowing flourishes in a lattice, and… he was sure the image would haunt his dreams.

The hunter walked back to him, unhurried and elegant. 

Anastas was struggling to stay on his feet. He felt a brief stab of envy that the hunter should look so tireless, while he felt as if something had cut him to ribbons and then pieced him back together… poorly.

The hunter’s clawed hand landed on his shoulder again. The weight made Anastas stagger and almost collapse. The hunter shifted his hand down to wrap around Anastas’s waist and looked a little chagrined.

Too tired to even apologize, now, Anastas leaned into the man’s body and shut his eyes.

“You’ve done well,” The hunter murmured, “So well. You’re almost there, come on.”

“'m going to pass out.” Anastas mumbled back, barely aware of his own voice, only the need to warn someone.

“Shh. Shh, no. You’ve walked this far. You can make it.” The hunter coaxed.

It was warm in the church, smoky. It smelled like home, though Anastas couldn’t say why.

He could see the blurry shape of white skirts.

“Brave hunter!” They did not sound pleased. “What have you brought me?”

“He’s only tired, sister.” The hunter’s voice was coaxing. “Let me take him to a bed.”

“He’s filthy,” the woman complained, and Anastas felt his eyes slipping shut and his legs shaking. The claws pricked him again, but they couldn’t wake them so well as they had even five minutes before.

“He’s half dead-”

“From exhaustion.” The hunter cut in, an undertone in his smooth voice that might have made Anastas flinch in better conditions. “If you would just let me pass-”

It seemed further away and less important. The hunter had him. He was inside the Cathedral. He was safe, or safe as he could be. He just needed to rest and then he could go, and the sister would be happy.

… He missed _his_ sister. She was a church hunter, and maybe she was waiting just inside, back from wherever she'd gone… maybe the hunter would bring him to her, maybe…

He fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been playing through the DLC and struggling to figure out a rough timeline of Yharnum's, um, problems. I'm doing my best to stick to the canon lore, but piecing it together is something of a struggle and I'm absolutely taking liberties when I find an interesting side route, so please bear with me!  
> Also I would like to curse at cloudycats for making me feel anything besides naked rage and loathing for Gehrman. I hope you're happy with yourself! (Seriously go read their fic it's pretty fantastic)


	3. Minister

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anya goes to church. It's a mixed bag sort of experience. He also completes introductions with the Hunter, about a week later than introductions usually take.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably overdue on this, so I'm going to make a note here for anyone worried about the tags: coercion, subversion of autonomy, and general (ab)use of force will come up a lot in this story - especially in regards to the Healing Church. Some slightly spoilery (regarding the fic) notes about the hunter can be found at the end if you're especially concerned.*
> 
> Also thank you to cloudycats, because your comment made my week. I had this chapter written already, but I hurried up editing it (while, it should probably be said, laughing hysterically) and then wrote, um, another 11k in the story document today. ... it's probably fine. Nothing to worry about here.

A pale face loomed in the sky, examining him. The eyes were gentle, and that was all he could focus on. The rest was blurry, indistinct no matter how he tried to focus. And he had little will to channel then anyhow.

Cold damp fingers brushed his cheeks. The moon-face murmured to him, sticky and wet. White dripped from her features and poured down his cheeks.

Anastas shut his eyes. Blood filled his mouth, the lightest and sweetest he’d ever tasted, and curdled his stomach. The sticky sounds filled his head, and whenever he breathed it was blood, and he went under, feeling so many hands grasping at his shoulders.

The phantom pain of claws in his shoulder jarred him from the dream.

Anastas sat up and vomited water. He heard someone gasp, and looked up into the face of a middle-aged woman dressed in black church garb.

Anastas tried to apologize and vomited again.

His stomach took over, aching and trying to wring him out. At some point the sister must have moved closer to him, because he registered her hand pressed against his back, rubbing gentle circles.

Anastas wheezed and tried to get the muscles of his body back under his command.

The nun peered at him, lips turned down in concern. She pushed some of the hair from his face and examined him with her brow furrowed. “You… had a rough night, child.” She said, brushing a thumb a the bone of his cheek. He leaned into the touch, body juddering every time he breathed.

The nun looked concerned for him. He wondered what sort of picture he painted, to merit the look in her eyes. Like she was afraid she would soon be nursing a corpse.

“What do you remember?” The nun asked, and.

… oh. Pain, fear. Running. What was almost certainly a murderer and the corpse of their unfortunate victim. The broken door.

The confidence of the hunter and the starkness of Anastas’s own terror. Rats. The roiling rebellion of his stomach. 

He wanted to vomit again. There was nothing left, but the spasms fought through him anyway. 

The nun rubbed his back some more and crooned to him, and he thought, _how kind she is to touch me, when I must look a nightmare._

His hands, which ached, were bandaged when he looked at them. … and clean. Very clean. All of him was-

He wasn’t wearing his clothes. Someone must have changed his clothes, for he was dressed in a white shift that was entirely foreign to him and… really nothing else. He flushed and turned his gaze up to the nun, searching - in apparent response she inclined her head. 

“I needed to check for wounds. I’m sorry,” She said, and really did sound contrite. “You could have gotten an infection if I left it alone. Your clothes are… well. I’m not sure they can be salvaged.” Her nose wrinkled a little, and Anastas supposed she’d found some stains she’d rather not linger on. How could he blame her? He didn’t want to think of them either. 

He had a memory of a woman speaking over his head last night, but he didn’t think it was this woman. She seemed too - kindly, to match the voice of memory.

Her hand was still rubbing circles on his back. He leaned into it and smelled blood, then parted his lips to scent it a little better. Blood… he'd never gotten to use any from the night before. If the vial was broken or lost, he didn’t know how he could afford to replace it while still keeping the pantry stocked.

The woman tipped her head to the side, dark hair peeking from under her habit, and gave him a tired smile. “You seem much better than the boy that was dragged in here half-dead last night.”

That was neither comforting nor flattering. He tried not to show it on his face. “Thank you.” Anastas murmured, and then, “I have money. I can pay.”

“Oh.” The nun’s smile faded. “Well. We weren’t sure, if I must be honest. But - you needn’t worry about it. The man who brought you insisted on covering the fee himself.”

That sent an uncomfortable prickle through Anastas. “How kind of him.” He said, instead of asking the ‘why’ that seemed determined to lodge in his dry throat. 

The nun seemed to sense his ambivalence, anyway. (How could she not, with it written on his face, in his wide eyes and his bitten lip-?) “He’s stayed nearby,” She said, and then, “He claims to know your guardian. Is that… true?”

Anastas could not be sure himself. “I know him.” He said, and then corrected himself, “Well, I've met him. He was looking for my…” Trailing off, Anastas realized he wasn’t sure what she knew and whether he ought to offer her more, and decided on the moment to reuse her wording. “My guardian.” 

“Last night?” The nun prompted.

Anastas shook his head. “No… before. The last hunt,” His fingers dug into his thigh and found a bruise. 

The nun stared at him a moment before her shoulders slumped, and she pushed a thin lock of hair from her face. Her eyes looked tired. “I see. And you feel safe with him?” 

Something of a loaded question, that.

“… safer than without.” Anastas said, because he did not want to say he distrusted a hunter of the church, but all the same he could not lie. What an ungrateful person he was, he reflected, and pushed himself from the bed. At the same time, he couldn’t help wondering what the hunter would want as recompense for such a kindness.

 _I’m in his debt_ , Anastas thought, and tried not to feel ill for it. “Please,” He said, and tried to correct his voice into something properly smooth and polite. “Please, would you mind directing me to him, sister?”

The nun hesitated a half second. She had been sitting on the cot beside him, but then she stood up and offered Anya her hand. When he took it, she eased him to his feet with a clever shifting of her weight to do most of the work. She stood a half a head taller than him, but she was slender and she did not have the scent of a hunter - only the faint odour of blood. Anastas couldn’t find it in him to be afraid of her. He wondered if she was being groomed for the Sainthood, or if she was past the age of consideration. 

Her hand drifted to his back, probably to keep him steady, and she guided him to the door. “Child,” She started, then stopped, seeming to struggle for words the same as he had. Anastas looked up at her with wide eyes and waited. 

“Be careful,” The nun said at length, her gaze focused on something ahead of them, “The hunters of the church are very brave. But they do not always remember to be- kind.”

Her brow creased again, and she looked deeply uncomfortable, like she was trying to speak around a thorn wedged in her tongue. “Do take care. I do not wish you into a state you… “ She seemed to struggle for words less-

( _What? Seditious_?)

Less dangerous, maybe. “… that you cannot be made whole from.”

Anastas peered at her and nodded slowly, once, without responding. The nun looked grim a moment, and then she smoothed her face out and pressed him gently out of the little room for convalescents and into a corridor lined on one side with tall arched windows, and whose stone floor was warmed by the streams of morning sunlight.

There were people walking to and from, quiet, wearing long robes and wide-brimmed hats and heavy habits. A few nodded to the nun leading him, but none of them spoke. His guide, too, was silent, until they stepped out of a door at the end onto a balcony that must have overseen the nave. A dark line trailed through the church out of the great doors - Anastas realized with a start that they were people, people waiting for - he turned his gaze towards the altar. 

People waiting for the Vicar, for blood ministration… 

A hand landed on his shoulder. 

“First time seeing a service?” A voice asked, familiar and friendly. Anastas startled so badly he almost crashed into the nun, and snapped his head back to look. 

A man that could only be the Hunter - though he was not dressed as a hunter in the daylight - smiled at him, eyes crinkling at the corners. He was dressed in a wide-brimmed hat and a hood that morning, with a mask over his lower face. 

… Anya admitted to himself after a moment that that was a very hunter-ish ensemble. So maybe it was better to say the man was not dressed as a _Choir member_ today. 

The nun steadied Anastas with her hand on his back and cleared her throat. Anya glanced up in time to see her fixing a look of sharp disapproval on the hunter. 

“Brave hunter,” She said it like an imprecation, and a warning. “Perhaps you might recall that we do not all share your senses.”

The man let out a sharp-edged laugh that raised the hair on Anastas’s neck. “Did I startle you?” He asked, eyes glittering. He didn’t seem - unkind. Simply amused by the idea.

Anastas did not want to get too close to him. He was very aware he could be wrong in his assessment. “Thank you for saving me,” He said, because he had manners. In the privacy of his mind he tried to decide what about the Cathedral’s light made the man’s eyes look ‘off’ to him - maybe it was that he’d only seen him in a veil or the blindfold helm, before?

The hunter turned toward Anastas and narrowed his eyes a moment, then bowed with a flourish. 

“I’m honored,” He said, “To have been able to assist the brother of my dear friend in any way.”

“… brother.” The nun echoed, sounding skeptical. Her grip on Anya’s back tightened, and he could almost feel her gaze turn on him and go assessing. “… Whose brother?”

Anastas twitched in discomfort. If it was not for useful information, he did not want to discuss his family.

“Why,” the hunter started, and this time, there was no mistaking the amusement in his voice, “He’s Vaska’s. Can’t you see from looking at him?”

And the nun looked. Her brow wrinkled. “I didn’t know Vasilissa _had_ a brother,” She confessed, “I thought it was only… well. That’s an unpleasant matter, I suppose.” She averted her gaze, lips thinning. “But he does have the look of their line about him-”

The hunter’s head tucked lower and his eyes narrowed to slits for a moment.

 _He’s like a cat with a mouse,_ Anastas realized, as if from a great distance. _With these secrets. He’s batting us around, and when we’re dazed he’ll go for the spine._

It was not a charitable thought, so he tried to keep it off of his face. But his wide eyes probably betrayed him. The hunter met his gaze and chuckled a little, softer, his own eyes crinkling at the corners. 

Anastas realized they were red like blood, or like a beast’s. Anastas had not known hunters could have eyes like that. His heart juddered and his lungs froze over.

Then the hunter patted his shoulder, with a gloved hand that did not have claw tips, and the moment broke like ice hitting the cobblestones.

“Hey,” the hunter said, gentling his voice. “I cleared your house and got the door to shut and latch again. I'll reinforce it later, but come on. You’ve never seen a service, right?”

Anastas looked up at the nun for help. She gave him a pitying look and touched his back gently before withdrawing her hand. “Forgive me, child,” She said, voice low. “I must return to the infirmary. But this hunter will see you safely out.” She gave the hunter another hard look. “I trust him into your care, brother hunter.”

The hunter bowed his head to her. “And I will not disappoint you, sister.” He said, voice oily in a way that he didn’t have when speaking to Anastas.

The nun sighed to herself and turned to go.

When she was invisible for the crowd, the hunter offered his arm to Anya, who shied away before he could consider the repercussions.

The hunter stared at him, tipped his head to the side - and laughed. “Fair enough. But you didn’t mind me touching you last night, you know.”

Anastas shuddered. He should apologize. He should- “… last night I could barely stand on my own.” … keep his mouth shut.

The hunter seemed, if anything, even more amused by this lip. “Definitely Vasya’s get.” He murmured, more to himself than to Anastas, then turned and walked away.

After a moment, Anastas shook himself out and followed him.

#

The hunter was very serious about showing Anastas the blood ministration. Up close and personal, even… 

“You look ill,” He said, smiling down at Anastas with his eyes. “Some fresh blood would liven you right up, don’t you think?”

… Anastas, it should be said, was practically salivating at the odor of blood emanating through the church. But he would really rather not be made to say so. “I certainly can’t afford that, master hunter,” He pointed out instead. 

The hunter tipped his head to the side. “I’ll happily pay the fee. It is, after all, due to my inattention that you came to any harm at all.”

Anastas shook his head. “I wouldn’t be comfortable agreeing to such a thing when you have already done so much for me,” He said, and meant, _I don’t want to be so deep in this hole of debt that I can no longer see the sunlight._

The hunter huffed a laugh and leaned close to him, watching a nun walk in their direction. When she was almost past, the hunter murmured, “If you can’t afford it… could that be why you were out so late?”

Anastas’s fingers twitched. “I…”

“I’m sure you weren’t home,” The hunter continued, pleasant sounding and hushed, “When the door was broken in. Every other entrance was locked, and I can’t see you having snuck past the intruder, so it’s… most likely you weren’t home at all. Am I wrong?”

Anastas tried to swallow, his tongue feeling thick and useless.

The hunter let out another low, private chuckle. “I do like you,” He said, sounding fonder than Anya felt warranted.

“You’re still wet behind the ears. It’s alright. I’ve got… what, a decade on you? Two?”

Anastas’s brow furrowed. “Are you really my sister’s friend?” He asked, aware it was an embarrassingly straightforward inquiry, but struggling to bring himself to care in the face of mockery. 

The hunter’s eyes scrunched at the corners. “Your sister,” He said, and leaned down so they were level, “Understands me better than anyone else alive.”

And that wasn’t the same as friends, was it.

… The worst part was really that he _could_ see someone like this being Vasilissa’s friend. 

Anastas examined the hunter, who continued to smile at him, and the longer he looked the more that smile felt like a challenge. 

Anya decided a subject change was in order. “You said you were going to show me blood ministration,” He said, lifting his chin. “If you’ve changed your mind, hunter, I would hate to take up more of your time. You have my gratitude.” He swallowed, “But I’m sure I can see myself safely home in the daylight.”

The hunter straightened back up. “Hm? Is that so?” He clapped. “Well, that’s all well and good… but I do mean to see you around, so don’t think you can escape it so easily.”

“Should I have to run from a brave hunter of the church?” Anastas heard some tartness in his own voice and nearly cringed. 

The hunter nudged him and turned to walk, and it almost felt companionable. “Oh. Well, you shouldn’t _have_ to… but perhaps. Sometimes.” His voice fell quiet. “Perhaps you might be smarter for it.”

The walk to the stairs down from the aisle balcony was quiet, and Anastas had to keep close to the hunter to avoid being run down by church members who walked too fast and did not look down - or if they did, it was with their lips curling. 

Anastas felt rather naked in his white shift. He wanted to go home and change. Now he looked like a… like a church foundling.

He caught the hunter giving him looks that were altogether too considering for his comfort. 

“No.” He said, when he caught one for the third time.

“No?” The hunter asked, as if he weren’t aware. 

“No.” Anastas repeated, walking along the ground floor aisle now, and examining what he could see of the nave. From the clergy praying at the altar, to the six fine beds laid out down the hall. Those were… odd, so his eye lingered. They were set out in three rows, one bed on each side, in the nave. They had wood framed canopies carved with intricate shapes, gilded in places, with heavy velvet curtains draped around them. Tall, silvery stands with full tanks of blood at their tops stood by the ends of each bed. Two beds had the curtains drawn shut. A third had an old woman, with long greying hair and fine looking clothes, sitting on the edge of it, while a nun in elegant white robes set up a transfusion. A few feet away from them, a middle-aged man with a thick beard and mustache waited while shifting from foot to food and scowling with typical Yharnum impatience. 

Anastas’s steps faltered. The hunter stopped just behind him and laid a hand on his shoulder. 

Anastas did not look back at him, or at the people sliding around them now that they were clogging the path. He was busy staring, in a mixture of wanting and - something else. Something needy, but not for the fulfillment of blood. 

“Hey, you there, kid?” He heard the hunter say, as if through water. The vicar finished his prayer and stood up, turning towards the room and the many people waiting. Anastas fixed his eyes on the man, who was approaching middle-aged, but still very handsome. _Vicar Laurence,_ he realized, and swallowed again. His legs felt unsteady, and without any warning he slid to the floor. 

Behind him, the hunter made a noise that he could only decode as ‘exasperated’ and, when tugging at Anastas failed to bring him back to his feet, sighed theatrically and dropped to a crouch beside him.

“Kid,” The hunter said in a low voice, “You are aware we are in the path. You _are_ aware?”

He was aware, he just… didn’t feel any real urgency about it. “That is Vicar Laurence.”

“What? I… yes?” The hunter did not seem to understand the significance.

Anastas wanted to stare at him, but he kept his eyes on the Vicar instead. He had no idea if he’d ever lay his gaze on the man again and he just wanted- he wanted… well, to make the most of it.

Which meant… memorizing as much as he could, from the elegant white lace of the veil and church robes, to the drape of his shawl and tabard, to his strong looking hands where they were folded in front of him. 

(That was normal… right?… maybe it was better not to ask about that…)

“He’s the reason blood ministration exists,” Anastas said, in a low voice which he hoped conveyed his urgency. 

He could feel the hunter staring at him, so either he hadn’t made his point or the hunter simply didn’t care about it. Anastas tried adding, “If it weren’t for him, I would be dead.”

“… kid,” the hunter started, in the tone of someone talking to a patient with an extreme head injury, “If it weren’t for _me_ you would be dead, and I don’t see you falling down in the walkway over that.”

Anastas gave up on staring at the Vicar for a moment in favor of fixing a dour look on the hunter. “It’s different, okay?” He knew he was being prickly, but he didn’t care. He’d lived this long despite his mouth, hadn’t he?

The hunter seemed a little less prickly with Anastas’s attention on him. “Okay. How? And- let’s talk out of the aisle, alright? You can shower him with adulation from somewhere with less foot traffic.” … okay, or maybe Anastas had overestimated his own safety in the situation.

Anastas didn’t _want_ to move somewhere with less foot traffic, but he ultimately agreed because the hunter was insistent and now Anya was, on some level, a little afraid the man might actually dump him outside and tell him to handle things himself… or decide to take a pound of flesh for the insolence Anastas had continued to show him, though up til now it had seemed only to serve as an amusement. 

The hunter stood up, pulling Anastas with him like he weighed nothing, and drew him to one of the apses near the vicar, where they had a clear line of sight while staying out of the way themselves. Anastas shivered, pressing his back to the stone archway, and felt a little faint for watching the man work.

“I don’t get the big deal.” The hunter said after a few minutes, his voice quiet. He didn’t sound prickly so much as contemplative when he said: “He’s only praying, you know.”

Anastas stared at him. “He’s - he’s _Laurence, the first Vicar.”_ He struggled to find any greater explanation. The hunter was watching him when he turned his head to look at the man. His red eyes glimmered curiously in the light from the window, and they seemed less - terrible, now that he was not being cruel himself. Anastas cleared his throat and focused on the Vicar again, cheeks pinking. 

“… gods help me,” The hunter said, “You’re taken with him.”

Anastas flushed darker. “I am not! I just… admire him.” A lot.

“I have to tell him he’s caught an adolescent admirer at the next opportunity.” The hunter said, sounding much happier than he really ought. 

Anastas cringed. “You _will not. …_ please!” He added the last in a hiss, and only because he thought better of making outright demands of a church official while he was in the process of doing so. 

The hunter leaned against the wall between two of the windows, tucking himself as much into shadow as he could. “Why not?”

“Because I’ll die.” Anastas said, “Because I’ll actually die and you’ll have saved me for nothing and won’t that be a waste? You’ll feel so stupid.”

“Kid, the stupidest thing here is the argument you just made… I definitely have to tell him now.” The hunter’s shoulders shuddered, like he was trying not to laugh under his mask.

Anastas let out a low, despairing moan. “You can’t. Please, good hunter, you caaan’t.” He knew he was whining. It was difficult to care. 

The hunter paused a little, and cocked his head. “Oh… well. I guess. If you’ll ask nicely, I won’t. … maybe.”

“You’re being cruel.” Anastas muttered. The hunter laughed at him, quiet, probably out of respect for where they were standing rather than Anya’s sensibilities. Whether or not he seemed awed by him… the Vicar outranked the hunter. 

The Choir existed due to Byrgenworth, and the discoveries that had been made there. They were basically sitting in front of… the hunter’s boss, and perhaps one of his mentors besides. 

Anastas clasped his fingers in front of him and glanced, without turning his head, at the hunter tucked into shadows like a bird trying to avoid the morning sunlight. “Did you learn from him?”

“Hmm?” The hunter tipped his head back enough to look at the altar. “Laurence? … well, once or twice.” A soft laugh escaped him. “But don’t go thinking we’re close. I’m from the Choir.”

“… I don’t understand,” Anya said, honestly, “The Choir is part of the church, isn’t it? And… did you never study at Byrgenworth?”

“Oh, sure.” The hunter said, hesitating a moment like he was trying to decide something. His next words were slower and quieter. “But Laurence doesn’t spend much time there anymore.” The hunter stared at the altar, and with nothing but his eyes to judge Anastas could not say what he was feeling, let alone thinking. “I’ve studied under Master Willem, of course. But it’s been… a while since the vicar did the same. I think maybe when I was your age… ah, no. Younger.”

“How old do you think I am?” Anastas asked, a little afraid of the answer.

The hunter did not reply to him. 

It seemed the people receiving blood from the church were allowed to sleep in the beds for half an hour, and then they were pressed to their feet and made to pay, and sent away. The queue dwindled. The vicar prayed several times, and took breaks to drink water between. Once, he looked at them and raised his hand in a greeting to the hunter, which… sent Anastas into internal hysterics that the hunter seemed _very_ aware of but blessedly did not comment on. 

Maybe he wasn’t actually the worst.

“How are you feeling?” The hunter asked him, in a lull between sermons. Anastas looked up at him, and tried to assess himself.

“I… dizzy,” He admitted, realizing that he was, and weak for lack of blood, but that was becoming… the new normal. “… I think hungry.”

The hunter nodded, like it made perfect sense to him. “Maybe I should get you home.” He said. “It’s a bit late.”  
… Judging by the sun, it was just afternoon. Still, Anastas did need to leave. 

… what was home and what wasn’t didn’t bear thinking about. 

“I need my clothes,” He reminded the hunter, not wanting to walk Central Yharnum in a shift. That would be… no, better not to dwell on that either.

“Hmm?” The hunter cocked his head. “But you look perfectly fetching in white.”

“Please do not tease me, brave hunter.” Anastas said, since taking that tactic seemed to get him his way at least some of the time. The hunter laughed. 

“Fine. To the laundry we go.”

#

The laundry, it came to be, was a pool outside the church with clean-ish water pouring down from a fountainhead fixed on the wall, in the shape of a strange creature which seemed popular with the architects of the place, or their commissioners. Anastas recalled seeing its likeness scattered around the Cathedral clutching lamps and 'raising’ ceilings on their spindly arms and misshapen heads.

There were several women along the pool edge, mostly wearing plain black dresses, with white starched aprons and caps. A few wore habits. They were strong looking and sweaty from doing washing in the noon sun. A few of the paler women had cheeks and noses flushed an angry red, and Anastas cringed in sympathy for them.

“Assumpta,” The hunter called, padding down to the waterside without drawing Anya after him. “Bedelia! Did you salvage any of it?”

A portly woman with a hard face and sweat beading on her brow turn toward him, scowling. “What are you wanting now, you knave?” She crossed her arms. “We don't need you making any more trouble.”

“I'm picking up laundry, Doireann.” The hunter said, tilting his head back a little - though not enough to expose his face to the beating sun.

if Vasilissa was any sign, then at best the daylight could be a little dazzling to hunters… and at worst it could be rather painful.

“that is what this pool is for, isn’t it?” The hunter pressed, when the woman kept glowering at him. “laundry?”

“Take your rags and go.” Doireann snapped, wringing clothes out over the water. Anastas shifted from foot to foot, uncomfortable.

The laundress’s gaze flickered from the hunter to him, and her eyes narrowed. A soft and derisive huff escaped her.

Anastas thought better of reacting, and stayed quiet. The other women looked at him. A few smiled, but most seemed disinterested or even unfriendly.

one of those the hunter had called on approached him, though, with the ruined tatters of his coat. “I tried to patch it,” She said, an apology in her voice. “Perhaps something with reinforcing would be better for hunts?”

Anastas looked at her strangely. “… I'm not a hunter,” He said, “Thank you.”

The woman’s eyes widened. “But- you have the scent about you… and your eyes are…”

Anastas made an uncomfortable noise. “I don't understand what you-… miss?”

The woman was staring at him in something like horror. She shrunk back and turned her head just a little to focus on the hunter. “Master hunter,” she called, and then, voice cracking. “Ascelin? Please come here a moment. Ascelin.”

Anastas looked around to see which laundress would come for him when the proprietary hand came down on his shoulder once more.

The hunter leaned over his shoulder, examining him from the corner of an eye, then fixing his gaze on the woman calling out for aid.

“He is-” the laundress started, her gaze flickering over Anya’s face with stark fear

“ _He is not afflicted_.” The hunter cut in, flat and stern. A warning.

The laundress heard it, too, and shrunk back from them with a still-fearful look. “… but his eyes…”

“I know, dear.” The hunter said, hushed. “But it’s hardly the blood scourge.” He was quiet a moment, then stroked his thumb over Anastas’s collarbone. “It’s his bloodline. He’s Hunter Vasilissa’s brother. You know her?”

The laundress startled and turned a fresh look on Anastas. “He- hers? Really?… I didn’t know she had any family left…”

Twice now. Did his sister never mention him at work?… Anasta frowned and bowed his head to her. “Yes, ma’am. I am Anastas Vasilevich Volkov.” On top of that, they hadn’t brought up Vera. But… well. Maybe she was before their time. He had no idea how long any of them had been here. 

The laundress mouthed his name, and Anastas thought, _right, they don’t do patronyms in Yharnum_.

“Precious, isn't he?” The hunter stroked his thumb along Anastas’s shoulder. “Sorry for the scare, love. It was not my intention. I-” he paused, eyes crinkling, and laughed a little. “I didn’t think anyone would look so closely to see his eyes without recognizing the rest of him. That’s my mistake.”

Now the laundress flushed, and bowed her head. To Anastas. “I am truly sorry, master Volkov.”

… what?

“Pray forgive me,” She said, and didn’t seem sarcastic at all. 

On poor footing now, Anastas bowed his head back. “I’m not offended. Um. At all. Please don't worry about it. I just… thank you. For my clothes.” He clutched the coat she'd given him tighter.

The woman’s answering smile dimpled her cheeks, and Anya realized that she was missing teeth on both sides of her mouth. The… eye teeth, and the lateral incisors too. He stared at the gaps and wondered about it until the hand on his shoulder gave him a firm nudge. “Hey,” The hunter said, “If you want to get home, we should really go. Let’s get the rest of your clothes so you can dress, hmm?”

… Anastas _did_ want to go home. He bowed his head and smiled at the laundress. “Thank you again. It was good to meet you.” He murmured. The hunter let go of his shoulder, and Anastas could hear him walking away.

The woman tipped her head to the side and beamed with what seemed to be honest pleasure. “Of course, young master. Ah…” Her eyes left his face to track the hunter - when Anastas glanced back, the man was across the pool and talking to a woman with needle, thread and a pile of clothes that must have wanted mending. 

The laundress’s eyes glittered with something, and she lowered her voice. “Do… be careful, with master Ascelin. He’s as bad as any beast himself, when he’s of a mind to be.”

Anastas’s heart thudded in his chest. He stared at the woman, who looked back at him with imploring eyes.

“What do you mean?” He asked, voice low, thinking of something from the night he’d met the hunter. 

_Which is real?_

The laundress hesitated, glancing at the hunter again. Checking to see if he was paying them mind. 

… it was possible he could hear them even from there. Vasilissa could have. 

Anastas shook his head a little, canceling his own inquiry. The woman nodded once and turned away. “I really must finish this. You have to come back and see us with your sister, won’t you? When she’s back from sabbatical.”

“Ah…” Sabbatical? “Of course. I’ll… be sure to ask her and come.” Anastas lied a little lamely, and stepped away from her. 

The hunter returned to him holding his trousers and his shirt. The shirt was… pretty thoroughly ruined… Anastas sighed and resigned himself to looking like a beggar. “Thank you.” He said again, low and heavy. “Is there somewhere I might change?”

“I’m sure we can find a room.” The hunter commented, walking to his side without touching him. “Come along, then.”

Anastas inclined his head to the man and followed him inside. 

#

The church was busy, as it had been in the morning, but it felt - different, without the pleasant voice of the Vicar echoing through the nave.

The hunter lead him down the aisle away from the crossing, brisk as before, and turned left, leading Anastas into a door which- lead to a spiralling stairwell in a rectangular tower which was only sparsely lit. Under the stairs there were several boxes and tarps, and the place had a general air of disuse. 

The hunter gestured grandly. “No one likes this stairwell. Should be private enough, and no more pesky questions.”

Anastas turned to give him a doubtful look. “Do you… know how bad this looks, brave hunter? Or do you just not care?”

The hunter, who was leaning on the door they’d come in by, widened his eyes as if Anastas had said something shocking. “Well, they don’t like it because they say it’s haunted.”

“… you don’t care, right.” Anastas sighed, and turned away. The hunter’s laugh echoed up the tower and back and - yes, alright, that sounded disturbing, he could see why one might think the place haunted. He moved behind a large box, hoping to approximate privacy, and began the slow task of dressing.

“What did you think of it?” The hunter asked from behind him.

Anastas checked, and couldn’t see the man. His shoulders relaxed a little. “Think of what?”

“The Grand Cathedral. You’ve never been here, have you?”

… oh. It was… “It’s big.” Anastas said, because that was really the thing. “It’s beautiful. I don’t… know what else you might expect.”

“Hmm.” The hunter shifted. “You just seemed - I don’t know. Religious.”

“…” Anastas looped his belt and buckled it, mulling that over. “Of course I am. But the church - it wouldn’t be magical without the clergy, would it.”

“I don’t know. I think the place has a sort of energy of its own.” The hunter demurred. 

Anastas tucked his shirt in as neatly as he could, then shrugged on his waistcoat to button up. “Do you know… Why didn’t she talk about me?” He asked, staring at the button in his hand. The stylized likeness of a wolf was engraved into the metal. 

“Hmm?… you must mean your dear sister.” The hunter said with the same inflection one might use to discuss the weather in a far off village. “To be perfectly honest with you… I have no idea. Maybe she liked to keep her work and her home life separate.”

Something about that bothered Anastas. The hunter had been telling everyone that he was Vasilissa’s brother. “… then why do you keep explaining it?” He asked, adjusting the cuffs of his sleeves. 

The hunter laughed a little. “You have to ask?… I don’t want people thinking I’m picking up rentboys, now.”

Anastas flinched and looked at his clothes, which had been perfectly respectable before he’d gone racing through Yharnum and flung himself on a rubbish pile. 

“And,” The hunter said, “I don’t want them thinking you’re for hire, either. Your sister would… oh, I don’t want to think of what she’d do to me.” He let out another laugh, this one Anastas struggled to describe. It sounded nervous… or… rather, like a scripted parody of nerves. 

He didn’t get the impression the hunter was afraid of his sister. And he didn’t know what to think of that, but it made _him_ nervous in some nebulous way. His safety was, he realized, predicated on respect for Vasilissa. Vasilissa, who was not there, and who was away on some mysterious ‘sabbatical’. 

“I know little of you.” Anastas said, stepping out from the rock. His cap hadn’t been returned to him, so either it was lost or ruined. He… couldn’t rightly remember what had happened to it the night before. “Vasya didn’t talk about her work.”

This… was not entirely true. But she was cagey about it. And he felt the same nervous tension around the hunter that Vasilissa had instilled in him regarding dark alleys, and strange noises, and the odor of hunters and their tools.

“I know little of you.” The hunter echoed, drumming his fingers against the wood of the door. “Vaska didn’t talk about home. I think the last thing she mentioned was… running low on milk.” He laughed a little, low and rough. “Can you _imagine?_ ”

“That does sound like her.” Anastas admitted with a sigh. His sister was not a fan of… people, or pleasantries. 

Really, being a hunter suited her well, as she didn’t have to be good at either so long as she was skilled at slaughtering beasts. 

“She never mentioned any of us to you, did she?” The hunter asked, a bit bemused sounding. “It seemed a little incautious of her.”

“… how do you figure?” Anastas wondered. 

“Well… If something had happened to her…”

“Then I had contingencies.” Anastas paused, corrected, “Have contingencies. I… but of course, nothing has happened to her.”

There was an awkward, pregnant pause. 

“No,” The hunter said, and this time managed to sound as genuine in his discomfort as Anastas was, “No. Of course not. She’s merely been delayed. Perhaps visiting a lover or- hmm. Making some new discovery.”

Anastas hoped so, so much that it made his chest ache and his breath catch. “… I don’t suppose you’ve found anything.” He stepped out from the boxes. 

The hunter tipped his head back and examined him, then nodded to himself. Apparently, Anastas had passed muster. “Nothing more than you’ve heard today.” The hunter said. 

Anastas had no idea if he was telling the truth. 

For that matter, he had no idea what sort of standards a man who dressed all in black at the midday might have. The hunter did not even wear a pin on his scarf; he did not look at all like a respectable man of the Healing Church.

“I can’t imagine her with lovers, though.” Anastas admitted. “Maybe you should amend that.” He walked towards the hunter, who laughed a little bit.

“No? But she has them, you know.”

Anastas frowned. “You won't trick me.” He said, aware it was more of a wish than a fact.

“No tricks.” The hunter pushed off the door and turned to open it. The creak of the hinges carried all the way to the top of the tower. “She’s got at least the one.”

Anastas couldn't picture it. “I don’t think she has the people skills for that.” He admitted after a long moment.

The hunter laughed, so startlingly loud that Anastas (and several of the clergy in the surrounding hall) jumped.

“Oh my god. Kid,” The hunter wiped at his eyes, laughing a little helplessly. “You’re my new favorite, okay?”

Anastas shook his head. “Please just take me home.” He said, then nudged at the hunter’s side. “And stop laughing, _please_. You're making a scene.”

“Are you sure you're her brother?” The hunter asked, eyes glittering with mirth.

“Vasya might not care about appearance,” Anastas said with a frown, “But _I do,_ so stop.” 

The hunter continued to regard him with crinkling eyes. “What a charming person she’s kept hidden.” He said, half to himself, and nudged Anastas out of the Great Cathedral.

Anastas looked back once, at the tall and beautiful vaulted nave, before the doors rumbled shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bought the Bloodborne DLC, like, last August and didn't actually start playing that area until late December. Whoo boy has it been a trip, and the more I dig into it the more fuel I get for this fic. Also I actually just got to the final boss for the first time the other day and can I gush about Mergo's Wet-Nurse's design a moment? (I'm not gonna gush about lore because that's what this fic is for.)
> 
> *Spoilers for the fic, ish: the hunter is a member of the Choir which, from the in-game lore, originated in an Orphanage. The Healing Church doesn't seem to be the best at operating sanely or ethically, and from a historical angle... real life church-run orphanages could also get pretty bad. Accordingly, the hunter's way of navigating the world and interactions with other people are warped. There's more going on with him that will come up in the context of the story, but I hope that alleviates... some concerns.
> 
> **edited the chapter to fix mispellings. I have no idea why the hell clergy became cicadas, but the idea that giant bugs pray in the Cathedral is pretty funny.


	4. Sticky Thoughts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anya gets his door fixed, is reminded that the hunter is dangerous, and makes a decision. Also, there's tea.
> 
> **Trigger warning for violation of someone's bodily autonomy. If you need details, please skip to the end notes. Note that there are chapter spoilers there, but also I would really prefer not to blindside anyone. Thanks, and please keep yourselves safe!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Missmonie for betaing and putting up with my bizarre questions, and to cloudycats for the insightful and hilarious commentary :)  
> Other thanks to CottonCandyHaze, who was very patient with me messaging her with questions at eleven at night about hair care, and to Myoutakara, who has gamely put up with me jumping between domestic topics and story and characterization snags for Choral since at least new years.  
> I have no idea how long I'll be able to sustain regular updates for this, but I have a nice egg of about another 30k, and I am trying to scribble out as much as possible while I have ideas swimming around for this story.

The walk home was peaceful. The door was back on its hinges, as the hunter promised.

Anastas unlocked the latch and went inside, then looked back.

The hunter was lingering on the step, his head tilted to the side. Waiting.

Anastas arched a brow at him. “Are you a fairy, sir hunter?” he asked, when the man didn’t come in on his own. “Should I leave you some milk in a dish, as thanks?”

The hunter snorted and leaned in the threshold, crossing his arms. Still not coming inside the house. “Ah? Mocking me now? That’s cruel.”

“Don’t speak to me of cruelty.” Anastas muttered. “Are you going to come in or not?”

The Hunter hesitated, that time, plain and obvious. Anastas stared at him.

Maybe feeling pressured (why now and not before, Anya could not say) the hunter spoke up, and almost sounded sheepish. “… I didn’t want to crowd you, if I didn’t have to.”

Anastas did not know what to say. He crossed his arms and examined the Hunter, who seemed to be genuine - and who was squirming from discomfort.

… it was hard to distrust someone when they looked like that, he realized. Frustrating.

He supposed the hunter had put this much effort into keeping him alive. He probably wouldn't regret letting him inside now.

“You can come to the parlor for tea,” Anastas decided. “It’s the least I can do to thank you.”

If the hunter had an opinion on Anastas deciding things for his schedule, he didn’t express it. His eyes crinkled like he was smiling, and he stepped into the shaded doorway at last. “And you mean for me to drink… how, exactly?”

“If you don't want me seeing your face, we can draw the curtains and sit in the dark.” Anastas supposed. “Is that acceptable?”

The hunter laughed at him and shrugged off his coat to hang on the rack by the door, something that by all rights a servant or host should have done for him. He didn’t comment on it, and Anastas was busy lingering on the strange image of the man taking off a layer of clothing at all, as if he were a normal person going about day visits.

(… well. maybe that _was_ what was happening.)

Taken now by the strange image of church hunters making calls like proper ladies and gentlemen, Anastas put the kettle on the hob and then went hunting for what he’d need to serve a tea.

They had some leaves which were about as fresh as could be hoped for in Yharnum, and a set which was mostly still together, and with a few of the tea cups mended by other pottery and gold mixed with resin.

The hunter seemed surprised by the appearance of it. He reached out a gentle hand to trace one seam. “… there’s a word for this, isn’t there?”

Anastas looked at the cup. It was murky blue and decorated with shapes that reminded of the ocean. Actually- it was the one of the set he’d dropped last year. At the time, he been passing it to his mother. Her hands had been shaky from illness, he’d not been paying close enough mind- and the teacup and saucer slipped. The handle came off entirely, and the rim had chipped and cracked down the side. Mended with gold now, it looked like a lightning strike. The saucer had split into five pieces, only four of which they’d found. His sister had shrugged and taken the pieces somewhere, and come back with a mended pair.

The word hovered in Anya’s mind, indistinct. One of mother’s friends had told him about it in a parlor lesson, ages and ages ago. “… gintsuki? No, that’s… kintsugi, I think it was.” He said, examining the hunter’s eyes. “Mending with gold.”

The hunter turned the cup over in his hand. “It’s lovely. I wish we’d had the chance to repair things like this when I was young.” He set down the teacup with the same gentleness he’d had when he touched Anastas’s window, on the night they’d met, then ran his fingertip along the porcelain rim. 

Anastas stared at him and felt as if he were sitting in a minefield. He wanted to ask. He also knew asking was probably rude, at least if he went about it wrong, and… Navigating social intricacies was a headache. No wonder his sister avoided it and turned away visitors.

His hands shook. He picked up a kitchen towel with lacklustre embroidery and grasped the kettle with it so he could pour the steaming water into their teapot.

(About the towel… well. feminine pursuits were not Vasilissa’s forte, but in the absence of Vera and their mother she tried anyway. The house was littered with little bits of evidence for her efforts.)

“Do you like creamer? Sugar?” Anastas asked, setting his dwindling sugar cubes into the sugar bowl and fetching the low remains of their milk from the icebox.

“I don't.” The hunter demurred. Anastas paused to give him a strange look, and the hunter shrugged. “I never got used to it… I don’t really care for sweets.”

Anastas shut the cabinet on the teacakes he’d been reaching for. They were probably stale anyway.

“I'm at a loss,” Anastas confessed, “I’d like to be a good host but I've no idea what to feed you.”

The hunter sat in the chair Anastas kept in the kitchen for monitoring whatever was cooking. “Don’t worry about it.” He leaned back and rubbed at his face, mumbling, “It’s been a long two days for you.”

“That doesn’t excuse bad manners.” Anastas grumbled.

“… kid, no offense, but you've been a fantastic showing of bad manners since we met.” The hunter sounded amused, rather than accusatory. “Why stop now?”

Anastas made a face at the tea tray before lifting it up and turning to carry it out. “Fine.”

“Fine?” The hunter echoed.

Anastas rolled his eyes. “Yes. Fine. We’re going to the parlor, so come along.” In an undertone, he added. “I trust you know where it is.”

“Ah.” The hunter sounded amused again. “As you say.”

Anastas listened to the scrape of wood on tile, and then the faint creak of leather boots on the floor as the hunter followed him.

There was a low wooden table with fading filigree decorating its top, and ornately carved legs. Anastas set the tea tray on it, sat on their fading divan, and poured two cups. At the corner of his vision, he could see his guest peering around the room.

“You don’t have many paintings.” The hunter commented, and when Anya glanced up the man was looking at the walls with undisguised interest. 

Anastas shrugged a shoulder. “Vasya likes privacy, and…” Honestly? Painters were expensive.

“Ah,” The hunter said knowledgably, then took things entirely differently than Anya had really meant. “Of course, she’s not very artistic.” 

Anastas stared at him over the teacups. He set down the pot gently, and moved his guest’s cup to a saucer that had never been broken, and passed it across the table. 

(None of this was strict to etiquette, but he suspected the hunter either did not know or did not care to.)

The hunter picked up his cup with his eyes narrowed in a way that made Anastas think he was smiling. The hunter inclined his head and then, as if imparting a private joke, told him, “Unless you share tastes with the Cainhursts. By that standard, someone as ornery as her is practically a genius.”

Anastas blinked at him and laid his chin on his laced hands. “I’m afraid I don’t follow.” He confessed. 

“… nevermind it.” The hunter smiled at him and gestured to one of the few paintings they had: a waist-up image of a proud man, who gazed at the viewer with his hands folded on the pommel of a blade. “Who is that? He looks like Vasilissa, but… the eyes are wrong.”

The man in the painting had eyes the color of topaz. Vasilissa’s eyes - at least since becoming a hunter - were blue.

Anastas looked anyway. “Our father,” He said, squeezing his hands together. Vasilissa looked much more like their father than he or Vera had. “Vasily. He moved here from the north for a better life, became a hunter…”

“Ah.” The hunter clicked his tongue. “And married Mara Kazlaus. I think I remember it being talked about by the Sisters. Was kind of a scandal, an outsider marrying an heiress, even if she was a destitute one.” His eyes crinkled. Anastas tried not to twitch, because it was true - his mother’s family had lost a great deal when Yharnum had burned, though most of them hadn’t burned with it. 

The hunter looked at the painting again. “You know… maybe I saw them together, but I was very young.” He blinked and added, “Your mom was pretty. I don’t think you really look like her, though.”

Anastas shrugged. “She said we look like grandmother. Ah- Vera and I.” He saw the hunter tilt his head in interest, but the man didn’t say anything. Anastas looked back to the teapot. “But if you saw them - That wouldn’t surprise me.” He picked up his cup and sipped. “I remember little about them, so I can’t say much. But they liked to go to town together, before things got- bad.” His father had passed perhaps six years ago, on a hunting night.

Anastas’s fingers tightened on the cup. “That’s not how I remember him looking at all, honestly. It’s from before Vasilissa was even born - my mother’s mother commissioned it to celebrate the wedding.”

“Kind of her.” The hunter mused. “At least the family welcomed him, if the city wouldn’t. Any others?” The hunter put his head in his hand and looked wistful. “Seems like a nice memory. If the face ever blurs-”

Anastas’s heart twinged. “Yes. Of course. There are others. Mother - ah, Vasilissa, I have one of her in my room. A smaller one of Vera and I, and I think Vasya keeps our likenesses in a locket. But others we haven’t taken from storage yet.” He deliberately released his cup, afraid of breaking another. Porcelain was delicate.

Perhaps aware he’d pressed on a bruise, the hunter went silent. 

The paintings would come out when the mourning period had ended. But for now it was too sudden. 

#

They’d lapsed into something of an awkward silence for a while, after the topic of paintings was dropped. In that time, neither of them sipped their tea, because…

The hunter wouldn’t take off his mask to drink, not until Anastas shut the curtains. 

(It seemed a little dramatic to Anastas, but he would grant that perhaps the light was unpleasant.)

Drinking tea by a dim candle stub was not the highlight of his day either, but he didn’t say so, considering it his duty as host to act with at least some decorum.

It was the least their mother would expect of him. Vera would either be teasing the man, or have alchemized a friendship out of old lint and some light conversation. Vasilissa wasn’t a good template here, since she’d probably scold the hunter herself for… what? Daring to show his face in her home at all?

Honestly, probably. Maybe neither of them was a good template, because he wasn’t either one, and he didn’t have their abilities to draw on. He was just out of practice with guests. The last regular one they’d had was Vasilissa’s fiance, and that particular ship had gone down flaming, so.

Anastas rubbed his left temple with the hand not clutching his teacup. What was he doing? Was there anything he could do besides look for Vasilissa himself? Perhaps if he went out early tomorrow, he could…

“You going to tell me?” The hunter asked, while Anya was drinking and trying to figure out how to find his sister with limited funds, connections, or information.

Anastas paused, staring at the flickering candlelight on his saucer. “I’m sorry.” Visions of strange lumps and sharp gleaming teeth flashed through his mind. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Anya could hear the shifting of clothes, then the hunter reached across the table. The black gloves were singed and smelled of flame. “You,” The hunter said, tapping Anastas on the breastbone with one finger, “Were out of doors last night. You still haven’t told me _why_.”

A flush came over Anastas, chagrined, and a little angry. “I did think we were past this.” He said, and scowled when the finger prodded him again. “Alright! I… I needed something.”

The hunter waited, a hazy shape in the dark, and tapped a staccato on Anastas’s chest. Anastas considered, for a brief moment of insanity, how much trouble he would be in if he swatted that finger away. Another vision of a mangled corpse came and sent shudders wracking through his body. He didn’t do it.

The hunter hummed, and he sounded almost pleased with himself. “Just tell me already, won’t you? I know you want to drop it.”

“I told you-”

“And now I want you to tell me,” The hunter cut in, in the same tones he’d used to warn off the laundress at the washing pool, “ _What_ was important enough to risk your own neck for… hm?” Tap, tap, tap. “I asked you to stay inside. I’m sure your sister asked the same… so what happened?”

The room smelled like curdling blood. Anastas recoiled from the hunter, fingers digging into his thighs, and turned his head away. 

The hunter let out a soft noise like a huff and leaned into the candlelight, so Anastas could make out the edge of a narrow jaw, thin lips parted around sharp white teeth, outlining a threat. _“Tell me.”_

Anastas caved. All in a single rushed breath, he blurted, “I ran out of blood vials.” 

The hunter went still, his finger still resting almost on Anastas’s front. “What.”

Abruptly, he sat straight in his seat. Despite the increased space Anastas was uneasy, because now the hunter’s face was all but swallowed by shadow again. “An addict.” The man said, not a question but a statement.

Twice in a day. The word sent something stinging through Anastas’s chest that went unacknowledged - he couldn’t bring himself to examine it while the hunter was present. He let go of his cup and crossed his arms, making himself small. “… I’m ill.” He admitted, “Since I was a child. The blood- the blood helps.”

“Yeah.” The hunter sounded contemplative. “Yeah. I’m sure it does. … so when you offered me those vials…”

Anastas winced. “I was running low. But you- I mean… I can’t… look for her on my own, you know.”

“No. No, I suppose you can’t.” The hunter sighed and shifted, rubbing at his forehead. “… I _do_ want to find your sister, you know.”

“I know.” Anastas said. That, if nothing else, he believed. It was probably foolish, but it was something he could hold to keep his hope kindled. 

“… Thanks for the tea, kid.” The hunter stood up, shifting to - probably put his mask back in place. “I’m gonna go grab some things, make the door a little sturdier. You want to lock up behind me?”

“It’s… the middle of the day.” Anastas said, uncertain. He was feeling off-kilter from the conversation they’d just had, from its abrupt changes to the equally abrupt ending.

“Still. Can’t be too safe.” The hunter said, then paused a moment. The same quality entered his voice as when he’d playacted fear of Vasilissa in the Cathedral stairwell. “Besides. After last night? I’m a little jumpy.”

Anastas shuddered and did not think of the bloody street. “I… I can lock the door.”

“Yeah. Thanks, kiddo.” The hunter opened the curtains. 

… To Anastas’s befuddlement, the hunter immediately recoiled at the light that streamed in. Anya wondered if the man had forgot how the sun worked.

Anastas watched him and tried to remind himself that this was a dangerous, unpredictable man. Thinking of the debts helped. “What do I owe you?” He asked, dread heavy in his chest. “For… for your help this time.”

The hunter paused on the second window, gloves rubbing against the heavy material of the curtain. He hesitated a long time, so long that Anastas’s veins began to itch, and his heart hammered like a rabbit facing down a hound. 

“You know, I haven’t decided.” The hunter said, slow and syrupy, lingering on the notion. “Let me think it over, won’t you?”

Anastas hardly had a choice in the matter. “… as you will, brave hunter.”

“Mm. Didn’t you hear back at the church…?” The hunter moved to pass by him, patting Anastas’s shoulder as he went. Proprietary, again. “My name is Ascelin. You’re allowed to use it by now.”

Anastas turned to walk after him and wondered if he’d just handed his soul over to a demon. “Hunter Ascelin, then.” He said, feeling sand in his mouth, clogging his nose and throat, steadily burying him. He saw the man out and locked and barred the door behind him. 

Then he turned his back to the wood and slid to the floor and stared at the ceiling. 

_Vasilissa… what have I done without you?_

#

The hunter came back close to sunset. Anastas hadn’t moved from his place slumped against the front door, and the knocking sent him from dozing straight into a panic, where he flung himself across the room and nearly knocked over the table in the receiving room.

“Kid?” The hunter- Ascelin- called, sounding bewildered. “Are you, um. Did someone break in again? Should I break down the door?”

“Don’t break down the door! You just fixed it…” Anastas complained, rubbing his head. He struggled to his feet with a wince of pain and went to lift the bar and unlock the latch. 

The door swung open. The hunter was leaning in the doorway, dressed in Choir clothes once again. There was a bag by his legs, and two heavy pieces of timber. The hunter tilted his head to the side and gave Anastas a curious smile. 

Well. With the night approaching, he probably needed to work soon. Anastas wondered if the man even slept.

With a bowed head and a ‘please come in’ from Anastas, the hunter lifted his burdens and carried them into the antechamber. 

Reinforcing the door apparently involved mounting those on the wood, then fixing them in place with nails and then with screws. Anastas stared and tried to decide what to think about it.

“What am I going to owe for this?” He asked, chewing his tongue and watching the hunter curse at his tools. Seemed that carpentry came about as natural to him as embroidery to Vasilissa… well, not that Anastas could do better himself in either case. 

“What?” The man looked up from what he was doing, then fixed his blindfolded gaze directly on Anastas anyway. 

Anya licked his lips, unsettled and a little cross about it. 

“I don’t know.” The hunter said, “Stay inside and don’t give me the last of your blood stash as payment.”

Anastas bristled, and protested, “I didn’t!” Just the first two-thirds of it was what he’d… perhaps that wasn’t an argument he should actually make. “And I won’t, just… honestly. I made a mistake. I’m aware of that.”

The hunter hummed, turning back to his work. “Are you?” He wondered, and leaned back to inspect his work. “This should hold… shall I test it?”

“Since I would like to sleep with a door on its hinges tonight… please don’t.” Anastas mumbled back.

The hunter laughed at him. “Of course, if I wrecked it, I would escort you somewhere safe to sleep.”

That was part of what Anastas was afraid of. “Don’t you think I’m enough in your debt?”

“Hmm? I can’t say bringing you to safety after I destroyed your door would stack the deck anymore.” The hunter mused, examining the wood. “… really, though, I’m not sure I trust this. I didn’t find any evidence of beasts in the whole place.”

Anastas blinked. “What else would break into my house?” He wondered, then thought of the beggar and shuddered.

“You’d be surprised,” The hunter mused, “What walks the streets come nightfall.”

“… I…” Anastas’s fingernails dug into his palm. “That is. Last night, I was running from someone. Did you…”

The hunter tipped his head to the side, not turning away from the door. When he spoke, it was a low and measured echo of Anastas’s words. “Did I…?”

Anastas let his breath out in a rush. His voice sounded weak. “Did you see the person chasing me?… _was_ it a person at all?”

The hunter turned to regard him. His lips quirked in a brief, soft smile that seemed as out of place on his features as solemnity had, a few days prior. “No.” He waved his hand once and gentled his voice a little more, “Your eyes tricked you… It was only a beast.”

Anastas remembered the beggar, the bandages on his face, the gleam of his eye and his teeth. He remembered the low rasp of his voice and wondered, _did I dream it?_

And wondered, _what if I didn’t,_

And then, with the forceful finality of a child shutting away his nightmares, _beasts are beasts._

He had to have been mistaken. There were wolves, and there were hunters, and both were dangerous. But surely a hunter could tell the difference between another hunter and a slavering animal.

The Choir hunter had turned away from him. “… I figure I ought to do a little extra, here,” He commented, examining the middle of the heavy wood. “D'you mind?”

Anastas made a face at him. Again he wondered why the hunter bothered, but waved consent that the blindfolded man should not have been able to see. 

The hunter perked up a little and took a knife from his belt. Before Anastas could do more than stare at it in alarm, the hunter had turned his back and started carving lines into the front door. 

“… what are you doing?” Anastas asked, throat dry. Something about the shape of the marks hurt his head - he couldn’t look at them directly. 

“I-” The wood scraped, and the image blurred, wavered, burned. 

Anastas pressed his hands to the backs of his eyes and moaned. 

The hunter carried on, not noticing, or maybe not caring, “Am making sure…”

 _scrape_

“That you are protected while I am gone…” 

_**scrape** _

“Hm?… how are you feeling, kid?”

Anastas felt like throwing up. “I…” He braced his hand against the wall and eased himself into a crouch on the floor. He could see, with his vision fading in and out, the hunter turn and take a few deliberate steps towards him. 

“Oh… you didn’t look at that mark, did you?” The hunter wondered, stopping in front of him. He didn’t… have church shoes on, Anastas realized. No, he was wearing leather boots, with mud caked on their soles…

“Was I not supposed to?” Anastas wondered, then rasped, “I don’t think I can stand up.”

It was too cold in the room. He tried to curl up on himself, but his head spinning made it difficult. 

“I’m told they’re unpleasant for the uninitiated.” The hunter commented, sounding closer than before. Anastas felt a warm palm grip his jaw. He leaned into the touch, wanting the heat more than he wanted to avoid the touch of the hunter. “If they can see anything of it. The mind really is remarkable, in how it shields itself…. Open your mouth.”

“I don’t want to.” Anastas mumbled. 

“And I said _open your mouth_ ,” The hunter muttered, irritated. His thumb dug into Anya’s cheek a moment later, and Anastas let out a mewl of pain as his teeth were forced apart. 

The hunter tilted his head, and the gesture now reminded Anastas unpleasantly of a raptorial bird eyeing prey. “… huh.”

Anastas tried to make himself focus. The hunter was closer than he was comfortable with, and slid a gloved thumb into- Anastas gagged. 

“Don’t bite me.” The hunter sounded distracted, “This is important.” His thumb pressed down on Anastas’s thumb, the talon threatening him. Anastas choked down another noise, his eyes watering, and tried to plead with the hunter just by looking at him. 

“Oh, don’t give me that face.” The hunter said, lips turning down. “I’m not interested in hurting you. This is for your own good.”

Anastas wasn’t sure he could hold down the vomit much longer. And just for _that_ he hoped he could get some of it on the man’s nice white linens. 

“That’s interesting,” the hunter said, mostly to himself. And then he let go of Anastas entirely. “Shut your eyes. I know what the problem is.”

Anastas pressed a hand to his belly and another over his mouth, eyes squeezing shut again. “… I don’t like you.” He murmured, shuddering from the cold. He could hear, on the edge of his mind, the dripping of water. 

“You’d be stupid to.” The hunter said, “You know nothing about me.” He slid a hand over Anya’s forehead. It was blessedly warm, as before, and soothed the worst of the ache. Anastas sobbed into his fingers and tried to control the trembles wracking through him. 

“You can’t do that ever again.” Anastas told him, his blood pulsing through his veins in a way that seemed to echo. It left him shaking. “You had _no right_ to do as you did _._ ”

The hunter paused, stroking his thumb against Anya’s forehead. “… no?” He sounded perplexed. 

Anastas growled at him. “ _No._ How dare you.”

The hunter seemed to examine him. “… will an apology help?” He asked, a strange note in his voice.

Anasta curled his lip again. _Will an apology help?_ “If you ever do it again- anything like it.” He coughed, and winced at whatever came up. It splattered against the floor and, curiously, seemed to writhe. But it was only a trick of his wavering vision. 

Anastas made himself take another breath. “Do it again and I will find a way to hurt you.” 

The hunter tilted his head. They stared at each other, one blank and the other sickly and furious. The hunter turned away first, and Anastas counted it as a victory. He saw the man’s mouth open and his tongue flicker out, like a nervous dog’s would. 

“… right.” The hunter said, quiet. An odd quality was in his voice, one Anastas hadn’t heard before. It was almost like regret, though he did not think the hunter could feel that. “Right. Well- I’ll apologize, anyway. And I’ll keep that in mind.”

Then - maybe trying to make a better show of apologizing for forcing anything against Anastas, in Anastas’s _own house -_ the hunter got up and found a towel, and cleaned up whatever Anya had spat out. Anya didn’t want to look… without the warm hand to his skin, his headache was returning.

“… for the church,” The hunter said, almost sounding careful. “We’re still uneven. Would you say that?”

Anastas stared at him. He wanted to say no. He-

… most people couldn’t afford to pay for Blood Ministration. The tithe was maddeningly high, to encourage conscription into the Church or one of the Workshops.

His lockbox of coins might pay a fraction, if he gave over every piece… That in mind, they were not - even with the violation he had undergone - even. 

“Right.” The hunter said, examining the filthy towel in his hand, and not Anastas, who was silent and squeezing his fists over and over to squash his own anxiety. “I think I know how you can repay me.” The hunter turned his face to him, looking contemplative. “You’ll come with me tomorrow. Yes?” He tipped his head a little, and added, “I would like you to see something.”

Anastas felt dizzy. He shut his eyes and only opened them again when the worst of the vertigo passed. The hunter was crouching nearby him, to all appearances patient, and positioned to block the view of the door. 

“I don’t want to go anywhere.” Anya rasped. 

“Really?” The hunter tapped his fingers against Anastas’s cheek. “If you come with me, you might see something interesting. Or… hmm, someone. You like the Church well enough.” He rubbed the pad of his fingers against Anya’s cheek bone and coaxed, “Come see the Orphanage. The Choir was born there, you know.”

Anastas’s fingers dug into his legs. “I’m not an orphan,” He said, knowing it was not accurate. “I’m not alone. Are you going to make me?”

The hunter hummed. His fingers drew away from Anastas’s skin, taking away their warmth. Anastas felt bereft at the absence, and then resentful. He was not a toy.

“Are you going to make me?” Anastas repeated, the words feeling like thorns on his throat, because the hunter hadn't answered but he needed to know. “Will you force me to see it?”

“No. No, I could never.” The hunter said, lips quirking a little helplessly, like the resistance charmed him. 

Anastas glared at him and curled back his lip. “Then I’m not going.”

“Alright then.” Rocking back on his heels, the hunter stood up and turned away. His robes snapped and billowed around his legs, and Anastas was annoyed with himself for paying it mind.

His unwelcome guest strode for the door. “I’m going to cover the rune. Don’t uncover it if you don’t want another headache… alright?”

Anastas stared at him. 

The hunter gathered up his bag of tools and spent a moment to ensure he’d packed everything he’d brought. “You’ve rejected my price.” He mused, “So how else do you mean to pay?… _do_ you mean to?”

Anastas crossed his arms. “Are you going to ask for something worse than the orphanage?” He asked, nerves prickling with discomfort. There was no reason to bring someone to the orphanage ‘just to show’ them, especially not someone in his… particular position.

“Hmm…” The hunter took his time opening the door. He turned to lean in the threshold and tipped his head so far to the side it brushed against the heavy wooden frame. “Do you know, I don’t think you’ve agreed to give me your name.” Then the hunter cracked a smile. “It’s a little odd, isn’t it? Spending a whole day with someone and not saying their name.”

Anastas shifted so he could sit on the floor properly, and stared up at hunter with open mistrust on his face. “You’ve heard my name.” He pointed out.

The hunter shrugged. “Heard, sure. But you _gave_ it to Bedelia,” The hunter tilted his head. “and not to me. To be honest with you, I’m a little jealous.” He smiled, sharp and sly-looking. Another threat. “Haven’t I at least earned that?”

Anastas’s lip curled. What benefit was there to getting his name twice?… maybe the hunter had forgotten it, but he didn’t think so. The man seemed unfortunately attuned to details. “All you want is a name?”

“Well, I’d prefer it to be _your_ name.” The hunter said, patient, like he was humoring a child. 

Anastas grit his teeth at him and muttered a curse under his breath, which only seemed to delight the hunter more. “Anastas.” Anya said, trying not to notice the man’s glee. “Like ‘resurrection’. I’m Anastas.”

“Anastas,” The hunter said, perking up a little. “It’s a good name. Then I’ll see you later, Anya.”

Anastas recoiled. “Don’t call me that!” He told the hunter, as the man trotted down the stairs. “We’re not friends!”

“Anastas is too formal-sounding for a kid!” The hunter called back, then, “Be sure to lock up! I’ll check on you later.”

Stomach churning, Anastas shut the door. He did not look at the material fixed over the mark. 

Once the door was latched, and the bar was fitted in place, Anya retreated upstairs.

#

There was an attic to the house. Most people used them for storage, and Vasilissa had mentioned to him once that they should claim the same. But their attic was almost empty, a little dusty, with a desk and a tackboard. The former was littered with heavy books, the latter smudged sketches and scribbled notes. 

And… sometimes there were boxes, or cages, or coffins.

But not recently. That was a relief to him, since he didn’t want to think of what would have happened if the Choir hunter had found his sister’s… collection, while checking the house for unwanted guests. 

He went to the back of the attic, and opened an antique chest kept there, sandwiched between two bookshelves overflowing with sketchbooks and curios. 

Inside the box were items of various significance, ranging from the esoteric to the meretricious to… 

Anastas pushed aside a jar with an eye inside and cleared his throat. Focus. 

He should probably talk with her, when she was back, about her habit of hoarding things. He found, in no particular order, a cracked skull; a gilded pocket watch whose gold was flaking, and which did not tick or wind at all; and several books written in several languages. 

He found what he wanted tucked inside of one. A paper, so often read that it was soft and pliant to the touch with its once black ink drawings paled to red, or in places faded away entirely. Sketched across it- 

Looking at the images made something pulse by his temple, then when he wouldn’t look away, it turned to throbbing. One of these - he was certain it was the mark the hunter had cut into his door. He would understand the purpose. 

He made a careful note of the name, then turned to the book and leafed through it. It had a beaten leather binding, and an unmarked cover, along with the remnant of a strap and buckle to hold it shut. He thought it was… probably a journal.

Most of the handwriting was neat calligraphy, and the text relating to church rituals and holidays and a few lists. Mostly. Scattered throughout were sections which seemed… closer to what he was seeking. Notes about dreams, and altars, and strange sounds that lingered in the mind long after heading them.

It took hours to find the right passage. His fingers ended up stained with ink, but he smiled anyway, brushing them over the paragraph in triumph. 

“ _Lake. Insulator. Transcribed by Caryll of Byrgenwerth.”_

Underneath that, an annotation in his sister’s cramped and rushed hand, “ _Protects against all damage”_ and then beneath it, an uneven amendment with shakier, smudged writing: “ _to some degree”_

He tried to memorize the shape, until he could picture it even when he shut his eyes. He slid the paper back into the heavy leather book, and tucked the book at the bottom of the box. He arranged Vasilissa’s curios around and over it. He lingered a moment on one of them, white robes from the healing church - a relic from…

_Vera can’t come home. I’m sorry._

… Anastas took those out of the box. They wanted refolding, and anyway, if he could not have one sister, he would cling to the remnants of the other.

He hadn’t… thought about Vera, in a long time, but today she seemed to be cropping into his mind as often as Vasya. He’d been working especially hard not to think of her since Vasilissa had left. He’d been young when Vera had left home for the last time, and it- hurt, recollecting. 

And sometimes the absence of hurt came, and that was worse, knowing that he should have missed her more than he did. 

Sometimes he wondered if Vera had ever been real at all. But now he held her robes, and it was like he was reaching out to touch her skirt again before she left for-

… for…

What had Vera done, again?

He remembered she would leave the house. He had cried about it. But now he couldn’t fathom why, and without Vasilissa there, and mother gone, he had no one to ask about it. 

… it occurred to him that the hunter had not asked him about Vera. He’d thought about it at the laundry pool, and now he had time to examine it. No one at the church had mentioned Vera at all.

 _I suppose it’s been a long time. People forget,_ Anastas thought, and stroked his thumb against the robes. He laid them on top of the items in the chest, covering the strange books and the concerning paraphernalia and the jar with the bloodshot eye. The hinges creaked as he shut it, leaving Vera’s robes in the dark again. 

“I’m sorry,” He told them, because he could not tell his sisters so to their faces. “I think I’ve made a mistake without you.”

He stood up and looked around the attic. It was filthy, and he had a long night ahead and no mind for sleeping. Instead, he cleaned up the papers and re-shelved the books. He took down the papers from the board. The most disturbing illustrations and notes he slid into a file, intending to move it down to Vasilissa’s room. He could slide that into her lockbox and no one would find it, or know that Anastas had looked. 

Lastly he dusted and swept, not because he cared for looks- the attic was a study, a storage place and a schoolroom. It did not keep his heart- but because, knowing the house was only as secure as his front door, he did not want uneven dust to tell people who came after where he’d been and where he hadn’t. 

Then he went downstairs and delivered the file into Vasilissa’s things. Some of her knives weren’t where he thought she’d left them, but maybe she’d brought them on her hunt and he just hadn’t noticed at the time, since he stayed out of her room unless he was missing her very badly. The balcony curtain was open, too - Anastas walked over, checking that the lock hadn’t popped loose again - the humidity made it hard to keep the door shut and latched - before he would leave the bedroom. 

He locked the door behind him and went down the hall. The floorboards creaked. Anastas knew where to walk to avoid the noise, but tonight he wanted the sound fresh in mind. So he trod on the weak points and listened to their squeaking. 

His bedroom was upstairs, across from the room his sisters had shared for all his life. 

If he narrowed his eyes, he could imagine Vasilissa was standing at the top of the staircase with her hand on her hip, calling for him to come eat before she left for the evening. It was something he’d seen less than two months ago. Or their mother at the bottom of the stairs and looking up at him, gripping the stair rail for balance. … That hurt, but it was easier to think of those than to think of Vera, whose face was unfortunately blurry in the eye of his mind. 

But her hands he could recall in exact detail. She’d scarred her thumb on a sharp bit of metal, once, and the resulting fever had nearly killed her. Anastas remembered holding that scarred hand while she slept and while she screamed. When she was better, she had wiped his cheeks and smoothed his hair from his face, and…

The things that stuck in his memory were sometimes frustrating. 

After an interminable moment where he battled with his own heart, he turned and opened the door to his bedroom, and stepped inside.

The place was more for sleeping than living. He did not like to be somewhere too quiet, so he spent his waking hours in the parlor or the kitchen or anywhere else his sister might be found, if she was home. When she was gone, he’d stay near the street-facing windows and listen to the neighbors and, past a certain hour, the drunks.

His room had a rug, a bed, a vanity, and a wardrobe. The bed was still made from the morning before. He had a scarf draped over the frame where it could dry. He went to his wardrobe and took out the plainest, most durable clothes that he could fit, and a rucksack, then shut the doors. He laid the clothes on the bed and then turned to go through his nightstand, taking out trinkets to put aside. A gilded flint box, and an antique knife from his mother made to mimic one she’d been given for a courting present. A wide-toothed comb that had been his father’s.

Then he moved to the chair of his vanity, used the flint box to light the candles he had along the mirror, and looked at himself. 

… he looked like the tragic orphan who wanted rescuing in every other penny dreadful. That wouldn’t do. He could wash his face in the basin after, he supposed…

That decided, Anastas uncapped a bottle of oil and worked it into his hair, combing first with his fingers and then with the memento. Then he repeated it with a bottle of conditioner. Once his hair was as moisturized as he could reasonably get it, he sectioned it out again, took two locks near the front, and began to twist them together while taking care not to rub up the shaft. 

It took the better part of the night to get all of his hair - probably three or four hours, by how far down his candles had burned. He was used to helping Vasilissa with her twists, but he rarely had to do his own… well, on his own. 

He got up to wash his hands and then his face in the basin with soap, then returned to examine himself in the mirror again.

… better, with his skin clean, and his hair styled. The twists would keep for much longer than loose locks, especially if he couldn’t maintain it for a period. The bottles of oil and conditioner went away into his pack, along with the ivory comb and the flint box. He put the sturdy clothes on his vanity stool, and the pack atop it. Then he wrapped his hair in a silk scarf, which he really ought to have done every night (falling asleep in strange places was not good for his self-care - who knew), and made himself put out the candles, and lay down in his bed to sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The hunter forces his fingers into Anastas's mouth to examine his tongue and throat, despite Anastas repeatedly telling him no and attempting to get away. There is no sexual assault, and the hunter's motivation is not explained. The actions are addressed by Anastas as being unacceptable.  
> Hopefully that helps. If there's any concerns, please feel welcome to drop a comment and I'll see what I can do to help. 
> 
> Alternate chapter summary could really be: You didn't forget the Choir hunter was dangerous... right?
> 
> My apologies for any random needless capitalization. Also for misspelling Byrgenwerth at least a few times now as 'Byrgenworth'. I kept capitalizing hunter at random because I write at strange hours, half asleep and I tried to get those all out but probably missed several. It should really only be capitalized while being used as a direct verbal address (as it's functioning like 'Mr' or 'Sir', and while that's technically still true of written it gets really melodramatic to see Hunter this Hunter that.  
> ... I have no excuse for Byrgenwerth but phonetics :I


	5. What does the Choir even do, really

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apparently Choir hunters have duties besides slaying beasts and harassing teenage boys. Also, Anastas really can't be left alone for more than five minutes, but he swears that isn't his fault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!
> 
> This story started as a horror and has kind of stubbornly twisted into a black comedy monster as I write, which at least is in part due to some specific quirks of Ascelin's. Incidentally, this chapter has almost no horror. Almost.
> 
> Thanks to MissMonie for her feedback and beta-reading, as well as cloudycats for their insightful comments, and to myoutakara (who continues to patiently listen to my yelling about lore and pointing out the holes in my logic in the name of improving this monster).

As much as Ascelin wanted to stick around and babysit - seriously, how much trouble could one rich kid throw himself into? Leaving the house at night during an outbreak… he didn’t know if that was boldness or idiocy - he had a little time and a lot of work to do. Not a patrol night, at least, but still work. He headed deeper into the ward. He’d need to stop by his apartment and change, then see about accessing the library at the Grand Cathedral, maybe have a chat with some of the other clerics. He tried to remember if it was a night Bedelia would be around, then realized he didn’t know what day of the week it was, only that he’d had four patrol shifts and that meant it was time to visit the library. … probably. He hoped. 

_Maybe I should sleep more._

Giggling a little at his own poor joke, Ascelin walked into Oedon Chapel.

He rode the elevator up to the Church Workshop. It was busy this time of day, with people coming in before hunts to repair their weapons or augment them with gems, or to study the pages of runes spread out across one worktable. There was also a crowd of murmuring clergy which, to Ascelin’s annoyance, were blocking the staircase he needed to use right then. He tried to edge around them, and when that failed he was scoping out which of them he could probably shoulder check out of his way, when he looked up and saw the reason for the commotion. 

_Oh. The Holy Blade._

He hated it when Ludwig led hunts. The workshop lost their collective minds every time. It wouldn’t be so bad - Ludwig was a good-natured person, who rarely let his renown go to his head. … Actually, Ascelin couldn’t recall if the man had _ever_ let it go to his head.

It was a bit annoying. Ludwig’s even temper and open idealism were most of why Ascelin found him tiresome. The noble knight of the church act made his teeth ache, and he was never sure if Ludwig actually believed in the goodness of the hunters under him, or if he was the best actor in all of Yharnum.

(Not to say Ascelin didn’t believe in their mission. He did, really, he just… also considered himself something of a realist. He wouldn't be in such a hurry to help humanity ascend if they were doing all that well for themselves, would he? Yes, he also thought not.)

He got out of the way of the others, and thought about how much running he’d be doing to get into the Cathedral before dark, and tried not to sigh.

“-certain you’ll have enough bullets, sir?”

“Yes, I think our stores will be adequate for this, thank you. What I’m more concerned about is whether we will have enough blood for the healing-”

Ascelin’s gaze slid away from the crowd and towards the banisters. He considered whether he couldn’t just climb the wall and go that way.

“-Ah.”

Hm. Ludwig sounded a lot closer than he had a minute ago. Ascelin was just thinking that when his view of the banister was blocked by a tall, handsome wall.

_Goddamnit._

“Master Ludwig.” Ascelin said, fixing a smile on his face. “So good to see you. I’m very sorry, let me get out of the way.” He tried to move aside, and Ludwig brought a hand down to pat his shoulder. Ascelin flinched, and the man removed it immediately, a contrite look crossing his features.

“That’s right, I remember. You’re not much for being touched, Carim. I do apologize.” He bowed his head to Ascelin, to Ascelin’s private puzzlement. Being a hunter was much different from being a foundling, and sometimes those nuances could still catch him by surprise.

Ascelin brushed himself off and put back the pleasant smile from a moment ago. “Was there something you needed, sir?”

“Yes, as it happens.” Ludwig smiled back at him, eyes crinkling at the corners. He barely looked thirty-five, but he must have been closer to fifty. Ascelin wanted to light him on fire. “You’re working at the library tonight, are you not?”

… well, he supposed he probably was. And he wasn’t about to admit that he didn’t know what day it was to _the head of the Church Hunters._ “You memorize the schedule, sir? I’m flattered.”

The blank look that Ludwig gave him seemed to indicate some misstep. Ascelin was trying to figure out what it was he’d said that was off, when Ludwig asked him very gently, “Does the Conductor not recall the shifts assigned?”

Oh. This was Ludwig assuming what _he_ did was normal, not any mistake of Ascelin’s. “I believe she does, Sir. But she’s very… particular.”

“All leaders should strive to be particular,” Ludwig said earnestly. “But that is just my opinion. Ah… and the night creeps up while I carry on. You see, I was hoping you could deliver a message for me, to the Vicar Laurence. He should be in the Grand Cathedral this evening.” He paused a moment, looking far too earnest, and added, “If it isn’t too much trouble to ask of you.”

Ascelin attempted to look excited. It was a little easier, since he did like Vicar Laurence, in that absent way that he liked anything that gave him interesting reactions. “It would be my honor to assist yourself or the Vicar in any way, Sir.”

“Wonderful.” Ludwig’s eyes crinkled at the corners, and he took a sealed envelope from the folds of his cape. “Then, please see this safely to him. _Not_ to his secretary.”

Laurence’s secretary hated people going over her head. This was going to be an absolute delight, and Ascelin was definitely going to be late for his shift. “Nothing would please me better.” He said, managing a genuine smile, and took the envelope.

Ludwig nodded, twitched like he wanted to pat him again but stopped himself, and bade Ascelin farewell with a bow and flourish that Ascelin had been shamelessly imitating for years. 

Then he turned and strode off, and most of the crowd drifted after him, and Ascelin started up the stairs. 

One of the hunters left behind - a Yharnum native, by the look of him. Ascelin hadn’t bothered to ever learn his name - turned to him with a smile that was really just him baring his teeth. “Say, Carim!” He called. 

Ascelin paused a moment on the stairs to look at the man, who seemed emboldened by the attention. “Suppose the Vicar likes your mouth as much as Ludwig?” 

He tried to remember if he’d even _met_ this hunter before. They looked new, and when they were new they all sort of blurred together. Ascelin shrugged and kept walking. 

“Hey… hey! I’m talking to you,” Drifted up after him, as he rounded the top. 

Ascelin stretched his arms out, and very deliberately nudged a candle off the railing overlooking the workroom. 

“Oops.”

A crash, a curse and a lot of colourful threats drifted out after him. Ascelin paid little mind to them. He hurried up the ladder and jogged to the doors that would open to the Upper Cathedral Ward. 

#

His apartment wasn’t far into the Ward, a neat building styled after the churches of the area which housed only clergy and scholars of the Choir. Ascelin thought sometimes about trying to rent a place lower in the city, but his employer provided this one, and anyway when was he ever home. 

He probably should try to sleep, though, later. Whenever he was done with the shift and the babysitting and the extracurricular- anyway. The bed was a mess he half-heartedly tried to fix, and he’d left his Blades of Mercy on the desk for- why had he done that? Had he been changing out gems? He’d probably been changing out gems. He should really be better about hiding that he’d lifted enough tools to do that at home-

He stripped off his inconspicuous clothes and took his time washing, because he hadn’t had the time to really manage more than a fast rinse the last few days, and he felt grimy. He brushed out his hair and redid his braids, and rubbed a cream for the skin onto his face and hands. Then he pulled on his spare Choir robes, grabbed the books he’d taken from the library, his Kirkhammer, and his torch (never knew when you’d need a good torch) and headed out.

He didn’t spend much time thinking about the letter, aside from that it was in his bag. He used to, until he realized that Ludwig sent Laurence letters at least twice a week, and the last time he’d bothered peeking it had been so mundane he’d half convinced himself it was a code for secret Church business.

(It was not a code for secret Church business. Actually it had been a discussion of fund allocations, which was probably interesting to someone, but that someone was not him.

… and if the Vicar Laurence or his secretaries found out Ascelin went through his private correspondence, Ascelin would be on a post waiting for the quartermaster for the next Mass.) 

That week had been an incredible let-down in terms of energy expenditures, really. The hunter’s workshop was mostly empty when Ascelin hurried back through, which was nice, though it was mostly that way because everyone was working, which was less nice. 

“Ascelin.” Another Choir huntress, Della, was there. She was looking at the posted schedule. “You’re in the library tonight, right?”

“Ye-e-es?” Ascelin said, since she could clearly see who was where on the board. “… why?”

Without speaking, she gestured to the left, at a stack of books on the table. Then she turned and tipped her head to the side in expectation. 

Ascelin curled his lip. “Am I everyone’s errand boy tonight?”

Della shifted her weight from foot to foot and pursed her lips. “Do it and I’ll cover your shift on Friday.” 

Ascelin tried to remember why Friday was important at all. And what day today actually was. Maybe _he_ should look at that schedule. “And you’re doing this out of the goodness of your heart? Della. I’m touched.”

He couldn’t see her eyes for the helm, but he was pretty sure they were rolling. “Either agree or don’t, but you’re making yourself even later by dithering.” 

Ascelin peeked at the calendar. He tentatively guessed that it was Wednesday. “Fine. I will graciously return your overdue books.”

Della sighed in relief and took off her blindfold helm, then tried to shake out her hair. It was a sad looking mix of hat-hair and frizz, and her shaking only made the mess worse. Random clumps of brown hair stuck up at odd angles. “If you make the late fees disappear, I’ll take the Saturday, too.” Della smoothed her hands over her head, trying to- Ascelin wasn’t sure what she thought she was accomplishing, but it wasn’t his problem, so he didn’t ask about it either.

“Deal.” That would give him plenty of time for his side projects. Ascelin took the books. “Pleasure doing business with you, Del. See you later.”

“Mmhmm. Good night, Ascelin.” Della walked the other way, towards the stairs, and he headed out of the building and towards the bridge back to Oedon. 

#

  
  
  


The Cathedral Ward was its usual lively self after dark, which was to say that everyone sane was locked up inside somewhere, and the Church’s latest pet projects were patrolling the streets. They made hunters less necessary, which was nice when you were pulling double shifts trying to research in the day and fight back the scourge at night. But on the other hand, most of them were dumb as bricks, and they just weren’t very fun to talk to.

Sometimes they forgot that Ascelin was a Choir hunter and attacked him, too, but at least that was interesting. He edged around one badly reanimated corpse and glanced at its face. It stared back at him with dark, vacant eyes and its dark, empty mouth hanging open.

Then it pointed at him, and let out a furious moan that he had to assume meant something to the effect of _You are not one of us_.

Okay, so that one was going to be unfriendly tonight, whatever, except he didn’t have time. Ascelin jogged away from it, since Servants could really only get up to a fast shuffle. Or maybe only wanted to get up to a fast shuffle? He’d ask someone later, if he remembered.

The square had a few more Servants stalking around, and then on the stairs to the Grand Cathedral there was a veritable cadre. One of them tried to purify him for walking too close on the stairs.

The doors were open. Some of the lowest ranking clerics were scrubbing the floors and dusting the statues. Higher regarded acolytes were cleaning and tidying the blood ministration area, and the altar at the end of the hall had all the candles lit. 

The pale moon was in view through the rosary window, and Ascelin paused to peer at it. He always felt strange when he looked at the moon. … at least with it waning, it seemed to hold less of a sway. He walked past the altar and towards a stairwell that one needed a key to access, or… well, a knife to prise the lock with.

Ascelin slid the throwing knife back into its holster and headed down the stairs, humming a tune under his breath and trying to find the snag in it. There was something not entirely right…

The clerk wasn’t at the desk when Ascelin walked through the library doors at the bottom of the stairwell, but she appeared before he was halfway to the desk, which was a mild impediment.

“Finished already?” She asked, looking at his armful of books.

Ascelin smiled a little and shrugged his shoulder. “Well, they weren’t… quite what I was looking for. Actually!” He leaned on the desk, letting a smile curl his mouth, “I don’t suppose you had any other books with sections on tritones?”

The clerk’s mouth turned down. “You know that’s a disputed chord.”

“I know, I do.” Ascelin agreed, leaning closer, “But I really think I’m onto something with it! If the Bell can heal people… imagine what else we could do, if we can just make the right vibrations.”

The clerk eyed him, her lips pursed a moment, then sighed and adjusted her spectacles. “… Let me see about it.”

“You have my heart.” Ascelin’s smile widened. The moment she turned to walk away, his gaze slid off of her and onto the desk.

She disappeared into shelves. Ascelin slid behind the desk to sort through her papers. He doctored the papers a little so the dates weren’t so badly apart, scrambled several of the papers to hide his misdeed, and put them back, then put Della’s books in the middle of the return rack between a thesaurus and a book on… erotic religious iconography? 

Ascelin paused to stare at it. He did and didn’t want to know… maybe he’d hunt it down another day. Shaking his head, he padded back out from behind the desk and resumed his place leaning on it.

The clerk reappeared after a few minutes, three books on musical theory in her hands, and focused on the books he was still holding. Her brow creased. “I thought you were returning something.” She called.

“Oh, I realized I needed to crosscheck something for a paper.” Ascelin admitted, smiling at her. “So sorry for the trouble. But another day or two and I’ll bring them back.”

“Just don’t be late.” The clerk paused and gave him a meaningful look.

Ascelin didn’t dignify that with a response. He took the books on music to flip through, signed off on the paperwork to take them, and tucked them under his arm to walk out with a goodbye wave to the woman at the desk. He’d be back later.

Behind him, he heard her start to shuffle paperwork around. “… good heavens,” She muttered, then, “I’m sure this isn’t right…”

Ascelin turned out of the library and walked down a long hall with sparse lighting, his boots echoing on the cut stone. Ornate doors stood at the end, twice his height and made of embossed metal. (Ascelin was not actually sure if they were solid metal or just stone with a coating, and the secretary always watched him like she was afraid he’d whip out a chisel to chip at them and check, so he hadn’t actually been able to, well. Do that.)

He knocked on the doors.

The secretary answered, “You may enter to drop off paperwork. But it is past six, and the Vicar is not taking appointments.” 

Aware this was probably going to be the high point of his evening, Ascelin nudged the doors open and faced down his adversary. Laurence’s secretary was a soft-faced matron with neat writing, and a glare which put Ascelin in the mind of the Sisters who ran the Orphange.

He smiled at her, because she would be annoyed with him anyway, but it was hard to complain about a smile. “Master Hunter Ludwig sends a letter,” He held up the envelope so she could see the seal on it, and watched her severe expression twitch toward annoyance, “for his holiness the Vicar Laurence, to be delivered directly.” He was glad for the blindfold helm: it concealed the happy glitter in his eye.

(For his own sanity, he did not think about how he could still ‘see’ while he wore it. Most Choir hunters learned this early, but some crazier ones - well… the line between brilliance and madness really could go thin, couldn’t it.)

The secretary grit her teeth. She had a name tag on her desk that Ascelin was careful not to note. “Of course. Please go right through.” She said, and turned back to her papers. “It’s not as if there are official channels for such things… no, no.”

Ascelin did not point out that the head of the Church Hunters sending one of the Choir to deliver messages to the Vicar was probably as official as it needed to be, but only because Vicar Laurence had a tendency to be cross about screaming while he was in his office and Ascelin did not want any new whip-wheals tonight.

He walked past the desk and knocked on the inner door.

A voice which sounded not much older than adulthood beckoned him, “Enter.”

Like Ludwig, Vicar Laurence was somewhere close to fifty. And he also barely looked older than thirty-five.

_Well. Drink enough blood and you might outlive the gods._

If the scourge didn’t take you, anyway. Smiling at his private joke, Ascelin stepped inside and bowed to the Vicar. 

The doors swung shut behind him. Without the antechamber’s lilies to mask it, Ascelin noticed a strong odour of aging blood, which was unusual, but he supposed made sense. Laurence still took part in the Hunt, and he must have had scars. Perhaps today saw him aching. But Ascelin would not ask about it, because it was not his place, and because Laurence could be strict about matters of station. 

If Ludwig was a noble storybook knight, then Laurence was a king whom you needed to stand on ceremony for.

(He was a man who understood the value of presentation. Ascelin could respect that, even if their ideas about it differed.)

“Raise your head, good hunter.” Laurence called in his too-soothing way, and Ascelin straightened out slowly. He held out the envelope in mute appeal.

The Vicar beckoned him further into the office. “I suppose that’s from Ludwig.” He mused, and took the letter. 

Ascelin withdrew his hand and took half a step back, turning his face toward the floor for the sake of formality. He could hear the envelope being worked open, then a heavy sigh from the Vicar. “Oh, very well.”

Ascelin waited for a pardon. It didn’t come. Either Laurence had forgotten him (Possible- the man seemed to sleep less than even Ascelin, a dubious crown for anyone to seek, and whose only prize was fumbling over basic sentence structure and passing out on your work table at odd hours.) or… Ascelin ran over a list of anything he’d done that could be considered maybe slightly unprofessional in the last week. No- maybe the last month would be better, just in case.

“How goes your research?” Laurence asked him, and, oh. Okay, impromptu performance review. That was fine.

“I have made some small progress with the combination of Caryll Runes, sacrificial rites, and musical tones, your Grace.” Ascelin said, lacing his hands behind his back and pricking himself with his claws so he could focus. “Mostly in increasing the effect of the runes, though some tones behave- unpredictably.”

Which was to say one test subject had turned from a dead mass of wriggling snakes into a _live_ mass of writhing snakes, and Ascelin still hadn’t figured out _why_. But he saw no reason to trouble the Vicar with such a trivial detail.

Vicar Laurence shifted. “Do you believe it will be of use to the Choir? Whatever you create.”

“I believe it will be useful to humankind,” Ascelin responded. He just - needed to figure out how it could be useful to humankind.

Laurence paced in front of his desk, slow, the way someone thinking over a conundrum might. “Has it the potential to heal?”

Ascelin hesitated. “I’m not sure one would call what it’s done so far ‘healing’.”

The reanimation had made considerable changes to the anatomy of his subjects, which Ascelin was reasonably sure Laurence would find displeasing if applied to the citizens of the Cathedral or Yharnum. The last thing they needed was people turning on the Church.

“But it has the potential.” Laurence pressed. Ascelin shifted, uncertain what to do under the attention. Despite what he had implied to Anastas, it was not actually typical for him to speak to the Vicar for very long, and he’d been happy with that. This change in routine did not suit him.

“Yes,” Ascelin said, wondering what he was missing. “It has the potential for healing. Perhaps even at a lower cost than the Choir Bell, as it consumes chalice offerings, instead of quicksilver bullets.”

Laurence twitched his head in acknowledgement. There was a troubled cast to his face that Ascelin did not enjoy, because such expressions usually preceded him receiving some unpleasant task in the near future. 

Laurence asked, “Do you still dream, Choir hunter?” 

Ascelin blinked, briefly put off by the question. “I do still dream, your grace. I sink to the bottom of the ocean, where She waits to embrace me.”

Laurence relaxed the rest of the way. He turned in front of his desk, just ahead of Ascelin. “Good.” He said, injecting warmth into his voice. “Thank you, and please pass my thanks along to Ludwig. When you see him.”

Ascelin relaxed a little, because he was expected to and because this was familiar ground. “Yes, your grace.” He wondered if he could negotiate a late slip with ‘the head of the church wanted to chat' written on it…

“Was there any other way I could assist you?” Ascelin asked, wanting to get to his shift.

Laurence leaned back on the desk and said, “Actually.” 

And Ascelin cursed his own mouth and kissed his peaceful shift of research goodbye. “Your grace. Please, allow me to sooth your mind. What can a lowly hunter do?”

“Perhaps you might humor an old man.” Laurence cleared his throat and laced his hands. His brow creased, and Ascelin waited for the hesitation to pass. Laurence said, “The other day at mass, I saw you.” 

Ascelin’s brow wrinkled, annoyed to have been recognized. Had it been his hair? He knew he should have made sure to cover all of it before going out.

“You were accompanied by a child.”

Oh. Yeah, Ascelin had wondered if he was going to have to endure this conversation. 

He was mulling over a statement about how they didn’t need to talk about the expectations of a Choir Scholar’s public image when Laurence continued. “They seemed unwell.”

That was a different matter, though not on its face inaccurate. Ascelin considered honesty, like ‘he saw you and had some kind of breakdown’. He considered mentioning it was another hunter’s dependent that he was kind of looking after. In the end, he shrugged.

“He said he would have died, if it weren’t for blood ministration,” Ascelin said, leaving off _so he sat and stared at you for like an hour and that was terrible_. He trusted Laurence to read between those particular lines.

Judging by his twitch, the Vicar had. “How charming.” Laurence said, with the kind of uneasy smile that Ascelin usually inspired in people himself. “He is of course welcome back. But don’t… allow him to approach me.”

“Of course not, my grace.” Ascelin assured. He had zero intention of letting the kid near any of his superiors. He’d _just_ stolen him, and knew that the founders of the Healing Church would have a much easier time poaching a star-struck teenager than he had snagging a suspicious and desperate one.

“Is he hoping to become a hunter?” Laurence asked, and that- Ascelin paused.

He didn’t know anything about that, which was kind of a big oversight. He’d just sort of assumed- well. The kid was a blood addict, and he had those eyes that flashed like fire, sure. But even with that, and even being Vasilissa’s brother, he didn’t seem violent.

“I think he wants to be a nun,” Ascelin said after a minute, “If he wants to be anything. Sir.”

“… you mean a monk.” Laurence sounded uncertain.

Ascelin thought of the starry eyes and the staring and shook his head. “No. I will monitor him. And keep him away from you, of course, Vicar Laurence.”

The Vicar hesitated a moment more, then said, “If he has potential.”

Ascelin’s skin crawled.

“Perhaps- Ludwig. Yes, show him to Ludwig.” The Vicar decided. “He has a good eye for donors, and perhaps…” Laurence shook his head and turned away, looking up toward where they could feel the moon would be, although they were underground and could not see it. 

“Perhaps it is another gift from the cosmos.” He sounded grim, uncertain, and Ascelin’s claws pricked through his own gloves a moment. 

_Focus._ Ascelin twitched forward, bowing deeper. “Yes, your grace. Thy will be done.”

The Vicar nodded. “Very good. Take your pardon, choir hunter.”

Ascelin bowed so low that his helm brushed the floor. Then he pushed himself to his feet and backed out of the office, and thought to himself,

 _Absolutely not_.

Monitor the boy! As if he meant to share every interesting thing he found with his employers. Anastas was no key to ascendancy: he was a failed experiment, an interesting child. There was no reason Ascelin needed to share him with-

“ _Oh, hello. You’re not who I expected. Perhaps you could help me with something all the same?… as you can see, I can’t move…”_

… no. No, he had no intentions of sharing at all.

The kid was a fun distraction, and Vasilissa would be furious Ascelin had found out about him - yes, these were the important parts.

He walked past the secretary, back up the hall, to return to the library.

The clerk was shuffling through papers, still. “Choir hunter Carim.” She greeted, lips turned down. “You didn’t… touch any of these while you were in here, did you?”

“Hm? No, of course not…” Ascelin slanted her a concerned look. “Is everything alright? I can spare a moment to help.”

The clerk looked even less certain. “… no. No, thank you. I must have just misplaced - anyway, you are very late, aren’t you? Please go on ahead.”

“If you’re sure.” Ascelin made a point of lingering, and said, “A bit more really won’t matter,” That seemed to do it, and her eyes slid back to the papers. She nodded. 

“Please, go ahead. I’ve got it.”

Ascelin continued to the back.

The restricted section had a sign-in sheet, and a much stricter clerk. Ascelin wrote his name beside his shift marker, wrote the time (which looked nothing like what had been allocated), and smiled at the woman without an ounce of guilt. She gave him a gimlet eye and waved him into the stacks.

Ascelin spent a few minutes perusing the section on blood and medicine before he went to settle in. At a table where he could see the desks and the exit, he took out his notebook and the books on tritones and settled in to study. The blindfold helm came off; he set it on the table beside him, because trying to read for long with it on gave him the worst headache, and flipped open a book on the intersection of music and mathematics.

Perhaps he was just miscalculating at the tempo, or the register had been wrong. Or maybe snakes were too different from people to be a good test, even though their proximity to the woods meant he could always get ahold of subjects.

Well, maybe he could go down to the morgue and sweet-talk Ravenna into letting him sing at the corpses for a few hours…?

This was annoying. Usually when he was stuck like this, he’d go and pick a fight until his head could make sense of things, but… Vasilissa was still gone.

Ascelin laid his forehead on the table. Maybe instead of using the weekend to clean up loose ends, he should dig into where she’d gone off to. It would make her brother happy, and Ascelin could probably do with boosting his mood after the _Incident_.

He wondered if the kid could make a half-decent lab assistant, then nixed the idea almost immediately. A blood addict around pints and pints of blood was begging for disaster to visit.

He couldn’t test musical compositions in the library, even if it was just humming them to find the places the melody caught, so he had to stick to the theory for the entire shift. He took some notes, but he kept going back to things beside his research project, like where Vasilissa was, or whether he should report to Ludwig that another of the hunters had gone off the rail and Ascelin had had to deal with him.

Well… if he was going to say so, he probably should have earlier. Troublesome.

“If you’re just going to sleep on the table.” One librarian said, passing him by, “At least move out of sight of the desk.”

Ascelin cracked an eye open to watch her go.

… Well. Maybe it was better if he didn’t report it. After all, they’d want to know how he knew, and ‘I’ve seen him stalking young boys’ wasn’t actually all that damning without proof to back it. And if he said ‘he was trying to kill a kid’ he’d have to prove the kid didn’t have the scourge… and perhaps it was just better to avoid the whole thing. He’d done his job, the guy was dead (he… should be dead, even though he’d smelled like- something Ascelin had hunted before that) and he’d just convinced the kid it was a monster that chased him, and not a hunter - he had no intention of using Anastas as a witness and undoing his own work in the bargain.

Ascelin stretched and got up to pace beside the table, tapping his fingers against his leg. He stopped thinking about the false beggar, their superiors, the fact that the kid almost became a meal. It wasn’t worth dwelling on - it hadn’t happened.

The shift ended without any breakthroughs. But research was more about hours toiling over books and notes and looking for the thread which connected seemingly disparate things than it was eureka moments. You did the former because you wanted the latter.

Ascelin signed off on his shift, recorded what books he had used for the log, and returned the restricted items to the clerk. Then he passed by the other desk and smiled a farewell at the woman whose papers he’d played in, left the library, and climbed the stairs back up into the Cathedral.

It was dark out, not quite morning, with dawn kissing the horizon. The town was blessedly quiet at that hour, though soon the hunters would be coming home from their hunts, and the Servants would be banished into the dark places below the chapels, and the city would wake up again. But until then. Ascelin could be alone to think.

On his way out of the Grand Cathedral, Ascelin located the servant with the Rosmarinus Sprayer, and crept up behind it.

A moment later, the unlucky Pthumerian was bouncing down the steps, and Ascelin was feeling much better. He walked to left, intending to take the back route down from the Grand Cathedral before he went to Vasilissa’s neighborhood. The noise of the creature’s descent was satisfying, but he didn’t need anyone else showing up and drawing a correct conclusion about why there was a twitching corpse and several other upset Servants milling around at the bottom of the Cathedral.

#

The door hit the floor and shattered, wooden planks forced into splintering heaps. Fire licked at the edges of the doorframe and threatened to consume the house. Outside was wailing and screaming and-

Discordantly, he thought he could hear voices raised in song, a choral hymn to praise the gods.

He didn’t remember how he came to be in the entrance, but he was there, transfixed. The formless shadow in his doorway loomed as tall as the Cathedral doors - his house became the nave of the church - the invader resolved into the beggar, who looked in his eyes and laughed. “What’s with that face?” His mocking voice echoed down the length of the church. 

The singing got louder, and the beggar crouched down and snatched up Anastas from the floor and drew him toward his gaping maw, long eyeteeth and pointed incisors threatening to shred through-

Something banged downstairs. Anastas startled upright and clutched his chest, and looked around the room. 

His bedroom was cool and empty. He could see the faint grey of dawn from his window. Deciding he was done with sleep that day, and possibly for the rest of eternity, he slid out of the bed and slipped on his shoes and his bag, then reached for his mother’s ornate dagger. It was better than going weaponless. 

Still in his nightclothes, he slid downstairs. The banging got louder, down the hall from him, in the kitchen's direction. He crept forward, and was careful to avoid the creaky parts and to keep his breathing quiet. At the back of his mind he hoped the noise was merely another animal in the house. It happened with depressing regularity in winter, that they’d get some creature or another seeking shelter, though usually they stuck to the attic.

The floor was kind enough not to creak below him, and he took a moment to thank the house for it. There was a metallic crash and some banging, and Anya considered that maybe getting to the front door and running would be a better decision than his current path. He pressed his sweaty palm to the wall and tried to calm his heart and convince himself to go, but some morbid curiosity gripped him. This was _his house_. He would know, this time, what chased him out of it. 

It was stupid of him. Of course he knew that - like a child peeking into the dark to seek out a monster, except he had better reasons than most to believe the monster was real.

He thought of the beggar, chasing him. The one from his nightmare loomed in his mind and set his heart pounding. It would be better if he set up a line of escape first.

Listening to the noise deep in his house, and dreading the idea of it growing louder or nearer, Anya crept towards the antechamber. 

… The door was shut, latched and barred still. Even the paper concealing the rune was still there, which left - the windows should have bars too narrow for anyone to climb through. The only possibility was his sister’s balcony.

Their street was several levels above the next one over, and their house was built on a sheer cliff. He tried to imagine someone climbing that, and felt a little sick from vertigo. 

Taking the bar from the front door without sound was difficult, and more than a little nerve-wracking. He moved it so slowly his arms ached from the weight, and he forced himself to lay it down as gently as he’d lifted it, so it did not even hint at noise on the hard stone floor. He treated the latch with similar gingerness, holding the hand that wasn’t working it against the metal in the hopes of muffling any scrape of metal. He drew the door open, just a little, enough that he could rush out if he needed.

 _It’s an animal,_ he told himself, and crept back into his own home. Past the stairs, past his sister’s locked door, towards the kitchen. The door was cracked, and a little light shined through it, painting a narrow swath of the hall bluish white. The noise here was nearly loud enough to hurt. 

The thud of Anasta’s own heartbeat almost drowned out everything but his discomfort, though, and the rush of blood in his veins made him dizzy. He wanted to run. He wanted-

He moved a half step closer, and felt the heat emanating from the opened door. He breathed in. Mixed copper, musk and oil hit his nose, mingling with something base and putrid. His empty stomach roiled, and ice and fire lit up his veins. He unsheathed his mother’s dagger and, gripping it for comfort, he peered through the cracked door. 

… the kitchen looked as if a minor storm had rushed through it. Pans were scattered everywhere. His teacakes were on the counter, one of them half eaten and then abandoned. The hob had a fire crackling inside, and the kettle was atop it and blowing steam. 

The curses and crashing were very loud, now - coming from the pantry. 

Anastas adjusted his grip on the knife. Part of him begged for it to be a strange new species of possum. Another, larger part begged him to run like before, to find somewhere dark and hide in it until this was past. And a little sliver - a tiny, quiet voice that would probably see him die today - hissed that he should go inside and look, because he’d already come this far. 

_If you have to fight someone and all you have is this,_ Vasilissa had told him, once, _clutch the handle so the blade comes from the same side of your fist as your thumb is on, like so. But if you can get to their backs - hold the blade in a reverse grip and drive it down between their ribs._ And she’d showed him on a dummy, made him repeat the motion until he could do it unaided and unhesitating.

The quiet voice murmured, _see, you already know how. Just creep inside, before you lose the moment._

Anastas lingered on the notion for longer than he ought to have: was that something he could do to a person?

… no. Now that he was sure it was no an animal- Going after an intruder on his own was probably the stupidest thought he could entertain. He needed to leave and find help - attacking himself would just get him killed.

He took a step back from the kitchen.

“Vassi,” A man’s voice called, sounding- cross. “What the hell have you been buying? There’s nothing in this kitchen but dust and crumbs.”

Anastas twitched. He shifted the knife around to hold it properly for fighting, and took two steps back from the kitchen and towards the front door. If his heart beat any faster, he thought it might fly out of him entirely.

He could see the pantry door through the crack, open. He could see- a dark-haired man emerged and looked around the kitchen, pale looking, well-dressed, his nose twitching. Then his eyes caught on Anastas through the crack in the door and widened, and Anastas froze the same way a rabbit would have. 

“… not Vassi,” The man breathed, looking almost as poleaxed as Anya must have. “Ah. Shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Imagine being an overworked librarian and every time you turn around there's some pain in the ass hunter messing up your books.
> 
> I've spent the last two days scribbling a more detailed outline of the climax (this is nowhere near it) and laughing at past-me's idea that this story would only have 6 chapters or so.   
> Also, I love Ludwig the Holy Blade and definitely was influenced by Solaire of Astoria from Dark Souls while trying to write the guy.  
> Laurence... gave me such a headache, and I freely admit to being unsure of the quality of his characterization in here. We don't know much about him in canon, but we have hints, and I tried to craft something that made sense from those - and then had to portray it through the lenses of, respectively, a starstruck teenager and a fairly cynical hunter. 
> 
> Lore notes: I have been digging more into things and find myself uncertain on some fundamental things, like Provost Willem still talking to Laurence at the point in time that Choral takes place in. Rather than backtracking and undoing those, I'm just- committing to the idea that he couldn't actually cut out his former student entirely, for status/money/reputation reasons, and handled the schism much the way any dysfunctional organization might handle such a problem - he literally just stopped talking *to Laurence* and tried to discourage people away from the blood as much as possible.  
> (In general I'm trying to stay close to my best interpretation of canon with this fic, but if a detail being tweaked seems to make for a better story I'm liable to go for that.) 
> 
> Another note about aging - Provost Willem looks ancient in the Skull memory, which led me to believe that Insight might have some preservative effects (presuming it didn't make him look that old in the first place, who knows).   
> And prior to this I was operating on the presumption that the Old Blood slows a hunter's aging anyway, based on a mixture of 'well, how old is Gehrman, that he was contemporaries with these people?' and the idea that if the magic can repair you from being turned to ash, it can probably stop or at least slow the quality decline of duplicating cells. ... at least until it, you know, stops working so great and you lose the ability to dream...


	6. About the man in the kitchen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hunters seem to struggle with basic social protocol, as a rule. Also, Anastas is starting to hit an emotional plateau with all this fear and uncertainty, and it's hard to know how to comport yourself when you don't have anything resembling a script for a given situation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Didn't want to leave the other cliffhanger for too long, so here's part 2 of 'fun with home invasion'. I tried to cut out a lot of conversation that didn't add to plot, but I'm not sure I was altogether successful. My apologies :(
> 
> Thanks to MissMonie for beta-reading and constructive critique, to cloudycats for their insight, and to my younger sister for not confiscating Bloodborne even after I described being killed by Winter Lanterns as being "tentacle vored".

Anastas stared at the cup of tea in his hands. It was a high quality black tea, aromatic and a little fruity, with a mild flavor. There was a little milk in it and it was well-sweetened, as if it had been prepared for a child. It was… 

Certainly not anything he’d had in his cabinets. He was pretty sure Vasilissa had never bought leaves that rated better than ‘adequate’. 

… his sister’s only real skill-set was murder and most of the time he was at peace with that, but sometimes it could be inconvenient.

He looked up at the stranger, holding a hat in his lap, and wearing a coat that was almost a century out of style. Also sipping tea, to all appearances as comfortable as he’d be in his own home. 

So. He’d woken up from a nightmare about a break in to… to someone actually breaking into his house. He’d found them rifling around in his kitchen, and had intended to - first stab them, and then run. They had mistaken him for his sister, scaring him almost to death, and then they had… apologized profusely and made him sit down for tea. 

… He was a little shaky, but he thought that could be excused given the circumstances. He took a sip from his teacup.

“Good?” The man asked. He had a friendly smile gracing his lips, and wide blue eyes which seemed on the whole too earnest and welcoming to belong to someone in Yharnum. Anastas looked at those eyes and wanted to believe in the inherent goodness of their owner, who had broken into his house and ransacked his pantry, and that scared him. Maybe there were drugs in the tea. 

“Yes.” That came out a little high. Anastas tried to sound steadier, “Thank you.” He wondered if this was how he was going to die. What would they put on his gravestone?

_Anastas, 16. Died from tea with cyanide, served to him by a roaming lunatic._

Fat lot of good it did him, thinking of that after he’d drank half the cup. Well, in for penny…

“I didn’t realize anyone else still lived here,” The man clasped his hands and furrowed his brows, an apologetic frown turning down his lips. “It was rather trying to find the house at all. And I thought I saw Vassi before I came in, but of course she isn’t here.” He looked down at his tea, and his shoulders slumped.

“I was sleeping.” Anastas admitted, a little sheepish. He wondered if Ascelin had ever happened by - then hoped that he would, soon. “You thought you saw… my sister?” 

The intruder’s eyes widened. “I hope I didn’t wake you! Yes, I thought I saw her. Seems to have been wishful thinking… I just needed a word with her, you understand. But she’s gotten hard to get hold of. … I don’t suppose you know when she’ll be back.”

It wasn’t as if it had been a good dream. Anastas shrugged and tried to sound neutral about the matter. “She’s been gone over a month now. I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you any more than that.” His voice trembled, and this time he didn’t have the strength to do anything but let it. “I… really wish it were otherwise.”

“A month?” The stranger sat back, his expression open and - stricken. “That’s…”

Awful. Horrible. Alone. 

Anastas took another sip of tea and struggled to box away those thoughts. They would not help him here. “The circumstances are unfortunate,” He said, then paused and sniffed the tea, brows furrowing. Was there mint in it and he hadn’t noticed? He could swear he smelled- “I suppose she failed to mention anything to you?”

For a moment, the man hesitated. Anastas noticed it, and he’d had all plans to pursue - but at that moment there was a clicking noise from the kitchen doorway, and Anya turned and felt his heart stop. The barrel of a gun was pointing into his kitchen, aimed at him- no, Anastas realized, and choked in a breath. Not at him. At the intruder across his table. 

The man noticed it, too, and put his hands up. 

In the doorway was the Choir Hunter in full regalia, pale and livid. “I will grant you one attempt,” He said, voice deadly calm and soft, and words enunciated with such care that he sounded like a tutor, “To explain what you _think_ you are doing in this house.”

The intruder set down his teacup.

#

If there was a gunfight that ruined the kitchen, Vasilissa might actually kill someone when she came back. And also, if there was a _gunfight_ in their _kitchen_ , there was an unfortunately real chance that Anastas would become a casualty thanks to poor aim or a simple misfiring. Firearms were notoriously unreliable.

So he jumped on damage control. Anya cleared his throat and stood up. “Good morning, brave hunter!” He approached Ascelin with a smile that could not have reached past his mouth. “Could we offer some tea? Your mouth is even uncovered this time, so we needn’t sit in the dark!”

The intruder at the table was staring, but at least with Anastas between them (not directly in the gun's way, mind. He wasn’t suicidal) Ascelin lowered his weapon. A fraction. To point at the floor, instead of the intruder. He didn’t put it _away_ \- but Anya considered it better than a moment prior. And he really couldn’t fault Ascelin for it.

“Kid.” The hunter’s gaze didn’t waver from the man at Anya’s table. “I thought we agreed you’d be locking up the house. We did, didn’t we?”

“We did.” Anastas agreed, trying not to shake. He’d made it this long. He wasn’t giving in to his nerves at the finish, he _wasn’t_. “Please have some tea. You must be tired after your night.”

“Anastas.” The hunter sounded both dangerous and mildly perplexed. “Let go of my sleeve.”

Anastas pretended he did not understand and continued to pull the man into the kitchen.

The interloper hadn’t relaxed, but neither had he reached for weapons.

The choir hunter, though. He was probably the most furious Anastas had ever seen him. Anastas had almost gotten him to a chair and was debating how to make him sit in it when the hunter lowered his head so that he could hiss in Anastas’s ear better. 

“ _What the fuck are you doing?”_

 _Please don’t bite me,_ popped into Anastas’s head, unbidden. Followed by _Wait, no,_ _ **he’s**_ _the reason I smell mint._ Which was not altogether helpful.

Whispering was probably a pointless gesture given the quarters. Anastas lowered his own voice anyway to humor Ascelin. _“You can’t have a fight in here.”_ He did his best to sound reasonable and like someone that should be listened to. _“You’ll destroy the house, and I’ll probably die, and then what.”_

The Choir hunter went quiet, and looked rather frustrated with the whole situation. 

“Have some tea,” Anastas turned a look on the intruder.

The man smiled a little wider, took the teapot, and - obliging the polite fiction - poured a third cup.

Ascelin picked it up when the intruder moved his hands away, but did not drink.

Of course, abstaining was the intelligent thing. Neither of them knew what was in it. It could be apricots and hemlock.

The peace lasted a few moments, and only so long because Anastas was standing behind the Choir Hunter with a hand on his shoulder. (He could address his surprise at surviving what he was doing if he made it through the whole meeting).

“I think we’ve met before.” The intruder commented, looking at Anastas. Anya met his gaze, and the man continued, “Have we? Met before.”

He was familiar, but the oddity of the break-in had kept it mostly off Anastas’s mind. Anastas examined the burglar and tried to remember. Dark hair, pale skin, blue eyes… ornate clothes… 

“Oh! Yes. We have met. In - well, you know.” He made a vague gesture, flushing. He didn’t really want to discuss where they’d met.

The burglar gave a full-body jerk. 

In response Ascelin very nearly stood to do Gods knew what, and Anastas leaned hard on his shoulders to stop him, and looked at the burglar to continue their conversation.

“I remember!” To all appearances delighted, the man clapped a fist into his palm and exclaimed, “I sniffed your hair!”

The hunter stiffened under Anya’s hands. "What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Anastas’s gaze flickered down. “You stuck your fingers down my throat.” He reminded. “Yesterday, remember? Maybe you should be quiet.”

The burglar balked, “Wait, he did _what?_ ” And now a home invader seemed concerned for Anastas’s welfare, which was possibly the icing on their absolute three-tiered cake of a morning.

Before Anastas could even try summarizing what had happened, the Choir Hunter said, “Insight.” and-

Maddeningly, the explanation seemed to make sense to the intruder, because his mouth formed a little ‘o’ and he dropped the questions there. The kitchen lapsed into silence, aside from the crackle of flame in the stove. 

“Why… _did_ you sniff me?” Anastas wanted the conversation back on track. The man had been drunk in the red light district, or he remembered thinking so when he saw him leaving a house there. Then he just remembered the district itself and - no, Anya really hoped they didn’t need to discuss where they were in any kind of detail… His cheeks flushed darker and he found himself grateful that the Choir hunter, in his current garb, couldn't actually _see_ him.

The intruder started, hesitated a moment, and then held up a hand to indicate _really a very small amount_ and confessed, “I was a little drunk.”

… okay.

“When did you decide to break and enter?” The Choir leaned forward over the table.

The interloper smiled at him and folded his hands. “Ah, maybe fourish? As said, I was drunk.” His eyes glittered, and he appeared to be entirely sober.

Anastas tried to picture the beggar. He thought this man was too small to be the same person, but- 

“And the time before?” The Hunter pressed.

 _That_ seemed to give the burglar pause. “I’m… not sure what you mean,” He said, slowly. “Today was the first.”

… that didn’t seem right, but- the man had no appearance of lying that Anastas could catch. He let his gaze flicker down to Ascelin, who looked irritated and suspicious. 

If the man was being honest, that… changed things.

Anastas realized he’d been assuming this intruder was the same one as the first time, and that was why nothing had actually been stolen (well… except some of his sister’s knives?… maybe?) Worse than that, that maybe Anastas had not been in danger the first time. But if the intruder was not the same, there was still a stranger who had broken in his door and looked around while he was away. Or a beast that had snuck in and then run off, counter to all known behavior. 

His hand slid off Ascelin’s shoulder, and he hid it behind the man’s back so it could hang trembling without comment. _Breathe, one, two…_

The Choir Hunter leaned forward over his teacup. “How about you tell me what you're doing here, and I _don’t_ tell the Conductor you’re back in the city, sniffing around like a dog out of blood?”

As with frost at dawn, the stranger’s amiability faded. His lip curled to match Ascelin’s, and his body went still. “I don’t believe it’s your business or hers what I do here.”

Anastas stared at them and took a half step away from the confrontation. 

Ascelin slowly rearranged himself to a careful sprawl and loosened his limbs as if he expected to fight. “You know the city isn’t a free hunting ground for your lot.” He dropped his voice into something coaxing. 

It was… enlightening, Anastas thought, watching him do it to someone else. 

“It would really be easier on us both if you just told me what you're looking for. Come on. Why not?”

The intruder didn’t budge. “That would require what I'm doing here to be any of your business. Which it isn’t.” He raised his chin a little higher and added, “I am not here for a hunt.”

Ascelin’s fingers twitched on his sword. “If you're going to be difficult-”

“I’m not _being_ difficult.” The intruder rolled his eyes. “I am on holiday and I came to see someone, and she was not here. Though I must say, having spoken to you, that I find myself doubting whether the church still teaches their foundlings to comprehend basic English.”

The hunter’s hand jerked, but the rest of him went very still. Anastas flinched.

The air prickled, and the pressure seemed to plummet, as before a horrid storm. Anastas grabbed for the hunter’s arm, not because he trusted him to stay his blade, but because he was afraid the man had forgotten consequences entirely.

Clenched jaw, tight mouth, the hint of teeth. It was more emotion than he recalled seeing from Ascelin before.

“Please be civil in my kitchen.” Anastas reached to hold Ascelin by the sleeve. He stared at the intruder and begged with his eyes for the man to _knock it off._ “It's been a long week for all of us, I am certain we are all short-tempered and saying things we will regret later. _Please_.”

The intruder’s cold eyes flickered to Anastas and softened a little. But he did not take back his words or make apologies. 

Ascelin’s expression had gone flat, but Anastas could feel the trembling control that the man was keeping himself in the chair with. “How did you get into this house?”

The burglar blinked, then slumped back into his chair and shrugged a shoulder. “Back door.” He said, turning his face away and scratching his cheek. “Y’know, the one to the suite? Vassi mentioned it, once - said she likes the view.”

The Choir Hunter looked to Anastas, who nodded. “I undid the front door when I heard him. So that if I needed to run-” he trailed off. “… then I went to see if it was an animal in the kitchen. I didn’t want to flee the house for a rat… and, ah. Then he called me Vassi and insulted the pantry’s contents.”

The Choir Hunter’s lips turned down. “He what now.”

Anastas found it a little discomforting how often the man acted like he was the sensible one. “I’m… certain you heard me, good hunter.” He mumbled instead of saying so.

“And you let him stay in the house?” The Choir hunter drew it out like it was something stupid, which was really very rich.

Anastas looked at himself, attired in a nightgown and a hair scarf and scuffed shoes, holding a ritual dagger and a teacup. He looked at the intruder's sturdy, modified-for-fighting clothes, and his weapons sitting in easy reach.

Then he turned his gaze back to the Choir Hunter and tried to convey by looking that he had been stalling so that someone better equipped could arrive and help, and _by the way the hunter counted so would he please stop making a nuisance and help already?_

Ascelin’s lips twitched down, and he turned his face away from the both of them. “If I find out you're lying,” He started, stopped. Turned to examine the intruder and threw up his hand. “Oh, what does it matter. I’ve already warned you.”

It netted a smile from the man, who smiled at Anya and resumed acting the part of a caller. “I’m very sorry for the trouble. I’m sorry to hear about your sister - when she comes back, please offer her my kind regards.”

Anastas didn’t point out that he didn’t have a name for the man and it would be a little difficult for him to do that without one. It was hardly the biggest problem.

“Could you tell me when you last saw her?” Anastas asked, moving to see him to the kitchen door.

The intruder tilted his head back and hummed. “That is… ah. Probably by the Charnel House…”

“Which?” Ascelin cut in from the table. “Honestly.”

The intruder shot him a Look. “Do you know, I don't believe I was talking to you.”

Ascelin made a rude gesture back that Anastas tried not to look at.

 _Brave Hunter of the Church_. He thought, feeling a little wry about it.

“Anything you say could be helpful,” Anya cut in, “So- please. Just. If you know something of where she might be.”

The intruder looked at him for a long moment. His expression softened a little at something , and he inclined his head to Anastas. “… there might be something. But I thought nothing of it at the time, and I don’t want you to worry for nothing.”

“Please,” Anastas repeated, staring up at him. He was quite a bit past worrying for nothing, and figured they’d landed somewhere in the ‘something’ camp at least a week and a half prior.

The intruder shifted and reached to rub the back of his neck. “That is… she was asking a lot of questions about Mensis. You know, the… scholars.”

The way he said that word stuck in Anastas’s head. “I… don't know, actually. But thank you.”

Weren’t the Mensis Scholars gone…? He wasn’t sure how urgent dead men could be, but maybe Vasilissa had found something very important looking into them.

Anya knew little, except that it had been a big part of the Church before some tragedy had destroyed the school.

The intruder smiled at him and looked relieved. He slid his pistol into a belt holster and hefted his spear to edge out- probably this was safest with Ascelin still sitting nearby with a sword, glaring at him.

“Yes, well. I’m sure she’ll be home soon, Anastas.” His burglar smiled at him. “So try not to worry too much. But I’m afraid it’s getting rather bright out, so. I’ll see you later.” He put on his hat and disappeared down the hall.

Anastas took back his seat at the table, then sunk down until his head hit the wood, and stared at the wood grain. He heard the hallway creaking, and the groan and slam of the front door. 

After a moment, Ascelin got up and left him alone in the kitchen.

#

A few minutes later (probably. Anastas wasn’t in the best state to count) the Choir hunter brushed back into the kitchen. 

The irritation appeared to have fled him, and left behind someone matter-of-fact and businesslike again. “Did he wreck the house?”

Privately, Anya amended his perception to 'exasperated’. “He was looking for food when I found him.”

Ascelin shifted. Sounding perplexed, the man muttered, “Hunters don’t… _need_ to eat.”

Oh. “Really?… Vasilissa _liked_ to eat.” Anya shrugged. “I can’t say I’m surprised if her friends do, too.”

Ascelin stepped into the kitchen. “I did wonder why she insisted on going to the market so much, after…” He paused. “You know, it doesn’t matter. I suppose we all have things that we like, but don’t need.” After a moment he sighed, and walked deeper in to pick things up. He sounded frustrated again, but not likely to bite someone for it - just… tired. “She’s caused a lot of trouble.”

Anastas, who was watching him from under one arm like a child, let out a heavy sigh. “Yup.” He agreed. No sense denying the obvious.

“… when she’s found.” The hunter said, like he was deciding something. “I’m going to scold her.”

The stark normalcy of it made Anastas smile. He picked his head off the table, feeling lighter than before. “Yes. Please, would you? And I’ll scold her, too.”

He watched the Hunter stare at him. To his surprise, the man’s expression softened a modicum; not unlike the intruder’s had before, actually.

“We _are_ going to find her, Anya.” The Hunter assured. “She’ll be back with some terrible half-excuse about where she’s been, and you’ll feel ridiculous for worrying about her.” Then he turned his face away to regard the tea cakes with a mix of befuddlement and disgust. 

Probably it was the hour, or the desperation, but Anastas believed in his words. He _wanted_ to believe him, more than anything- so he found himself moved, and pressed his face down against his arms tighter than before; trying to stamp down tears before they could really get going. He didn’t speak, and he didn’t hear the Hunter approach, but he felt the familiar contact of a gloved hand on his shoulder, and then claws pricking him through the material of his clothes. 

He took a deep breath in and focused on the feeling with as much intensity as he could. Once the worst of the emotions had ridden him and gone, he slumped into his own arms and breathed.

(At some point, he would have to ask why the man thought jabbing people with pointy things was a stand-in for an actual bedside manner. But for the moment, he’d just take advantage of it as a convenient distraction.)

The claws left, and a hand moved to his back instead - after a moment of hesitation it rubbed ginger circles there. Anastas choked down another noise threatening to overwhelm him and tear its way out - a sob or a laugh, he couldn’t say with any certainty.

The Hunter cleared his throat. He sounded intensely uncomfortable to Anastas’s ear. “I’ll start looking again as soon as I’ve slept. I don’t want to agree with a pompous crow, but you know… he’s right that you shouldn’t worry over nothing.”

“It doesn’t feel like nothing.” Anastas rasped, rubbing his eyes on his shirtsleeve. “He knew my sisters.”

The hand stilled a moment. “About that,” The Hunter said. Paused. Stopped. “… how much do you remember? About Vera.”

… that was a strange question. He wasn’t _that_ young when she’d died. Anastas took a deep breath. “I think she worked for the church? She had soft hands. She- well, she was gentler than Vasilissa, anyway.”

“… high bar you’ve set there.” The Hunter muttered. He went back to petting Anya between the shoulder blades. “I wasn’t acquainted, and after what happened Vaska didn’t… she didn’t talk about it.”

“You can just say she died.” Anastas thought of Vasya’s apology, the day she had brought home the news. 

( _“I’m sorry. Vera can’t come home.”)_

“You’re not gentle about anything else.” Which wasn’t entirely fair - Ascelin seemed to be capable of gentleness in starts and bursts - but Anya was feeling a little truculent himself.

The Hunter huffed and pricked his claws into Anya’s back. “This is the thanks I get for comforting you, huh.”

Anastas grit his teeth. “Forgive me for saying so,” he said, not meaning to be forgiven, “But if I need comforting as of late? It’s usually your fault.”

The Hunter went silent. 

Anya inspected the hunter before he relaxed a little and continued. “I didn’t think you knew about Vera at all. You never brought her up.”

Ascelin turned his face away and shrugged. “She was a few years younger than me. Seemed to come out of nowhere. A promising Sister from a well-to-do family…”

Anastas sat up. “I thought you didn’t know her.”

“I knew of her.” Ascelin would not look in his direction. “But she wasn't really the sort of person I liked to be around- hey, don’t look at me like that. I’m not disparaging her memory. It was just… how it was.”

Anastas continued to look at him like he was disparaging her memory. “You’re not very good at people,” He accused, eyes narrowing, “Are you.”

The hunter balked. “What? Don’t be a brat.”

… This exact behavior was probably the best evidence he could present for being friends with Vasilissa, but Anya didn’t intend to tell him so.

“Anyway,” The Hunter turned his back to Anya entirely, and resumed organizing everything that the intruder had left scattered through the kitchen. “Point me to how you think he got in, will you?”

“… Ah…” Anya thought of the balcony in his sister’s bedroom and stood up. “Yes. Of course.” He needed to be sure the intruder had taken none of Vasilissa’s things, but he hadn’t been in a hurry all the same, because - well… what was he going to do about it if they had?

Dread, which had left him more or less untouched for the hour, reappeared. It seemed to walk by his shoulder the whole way down the hall. Close to the master suite, Anastas stopped. The smell of rosemary was trying to overpower it, but-

The Choir hunter tipped his head to the side, nostrils flaring. Then he moved in front, and Anya let him without protest. Ascelin readied a weapon, pressed his back to the wall beside it, and pushed the door open.

Putrid blood mixed with sickness poured out into the hallway and choked them.

The room looked like a slaughter house, with a massive pool of dark blood on the floor and more of it splattered on the walls.

The Hunter crouched to check under the furniture from the doorway. When that was done he walked farther into the room to clear it. “Empty. … blood’s cold.” 

The hunter took to pacing the room to look for something, careful to avoid the blood. 

Anastas sidestepped the muttering hunter and moved deeper in.

There was blood soaking into an antique rug. More of it on the dresser. The basin was positively filthy, with rags and towels scattered around it; and the water was fetid, cloudy brown.

The files seemed to all be in their place, and the bookshelves untouched. And… The balcony doors shut and locked, with the vanity chair wedged up under the knobs to keep them that way.

Ascelin came to a stop by the bed, shook himself out, and pressed away whatever wildness still gripped him. He surveyed the chaos of the room, and let out a whistle. “It’s… quite the mess.” 

Anastas agreed with him, but he didn’t say so. He walked towards the window and looked out. No blood on the balcony. But there _was_ a commotion on the street below.

The Hunter leaned over his shoulder, startling him. But Ascelin only looked outside, and whatever he saw made his lips twitch.

“I need to go down there.” He sounded as if he’d rather forget everything that had happened that morning, and instead curl up somewhere to sleep. “Get dressed.”

“Should I bring anything?” Anastas asked. He didn’t even consider arguing. Someone or something had been murdered in his house sometime since the night, _and he had slept through it._

Ascelin rolled his shoulders. “Uh- yeah, sure. I figure- Overnight bag. In case.” He turned and walked a short bit away, then pivoted to circle back, snapping his fingers. “And- good shoes! Something you can run in.” 

Convenient. Anastas had both already. He just- needed to change out of his night clothes. “Please give me a few minutes.”

“You have a little time.” Ascelin demurred and turned to look out the window. “I doubt this mess is going anywhere.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some flimsy justifications for characterization in here:  
> Ever have something so weird happen that you just don't know how to react and kind of follow the directions of whoever seems least confused around you? That's basically this chapter. 
> 
> When I was a teenager, I could sleep through anything... then I hit 20 and suddenly if someone screamed in the house I'd wake up with fucking heart palpitations. In retrospect, it was probably because as a teenager I was perpetually sleep deprived. 
> 
> Also, since it occurred to me that I've never actually mentioned it, Ascelin is not even slightly based on my player character in Bloodborne. He’s from another story I've been working on, and the moment I found out about the Choir I was like 'oh my god, I found Ascelin's people' and this feeling has only intensified with every subsequent bit of lore I discover on them.
> 
> Lastly - and this won't be relevant for another two or three chapters - my mental image for Vicar Laurence has somehow become "dangerous twink". 
> 
> My chapter backlog is a little diminished because I'm rewriting chapters 8-10 for better plot/characterization, but 7 should be good to post in a few days.


	7. Inauspicious Signs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Hunter and Anastas find the source of all that blood in the master suite. Also, some concerning ideas about beasts occur to Anastas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was supposed to be an interlude chapter but then that made more sense later on and I was rewriting this and here we are. 8 should be up in a few days. Also there's like, 26 chapters in the document now and it's so cute that I thought this was going to be a 6 chapter thing before all these little side plots and lore ideas slammed their way in. *headdesk*
> 
> Thanks to MissMonie for feedback on this (she had to read it like 2-3 times), Cloudycats for their thoughtful comments on the last chapter, and Myoutakara for listening to me reason through lore while she's trying to drive.

“I’ve made a mistake.” Ascelin said, when they were halfway down the block. He had the uncomfortable appearance of someone who had tried to avoid confessing, but was forced into it by circumstances. “Shouldn’t have left you there. If something happened, it’d have been on me.”

(The last time Anastas recalled making that face, it had been because his sister had caught him hanging from the chandelier and asked him ‘why’ in possibly the deadest voice a living person could manage.)

“A… crazy man breaking into my house through the balcony is on you?” He asked because he thought he followed, but also that was a little mad and he wanted to be sure. “I mean, I know you looked around the house, but that’s a little…”

“What? No.” Pause. “I mean, yes, but I didn’t-” Ascelin waved his taloned glove around, and Anya watched it scratch the air.

“When I checked for intruders,” Ascelin said, “I noticed the balcony door was unlocked. So obviously I locked it, but- that sort of door, it’s easy to pop.” He wiggled his hand, apparently showing the pliant nature, and Anastas tried not to think about the implications of why a hunter should need to know how to force open doors. “I should have stopped it with the chair before I left.”

… Like the intruder had.

Anastas licked his lips. “… We don’t block that door,” He admitted. “It’s, you know, we just- didn’t think someone would actually climb up to it. Not without making - a lot of noise, anyway.” From climbing up and down the roof. Someone scaling the cliff was just - completely unfathomable.

“It’s your sister’s room, isn’t it?” Ascelin peered at him. When Anastas nodded, the hunter said, “And your parents’, before?”

Anya’s stomach turned. “… yeah.” He said, thinking of the funerals. “Our father was a Hunter, and mother - I mean. She could take care of herself. I doubt they were any more afraid of an intruder than you or Vasya would be.”

It was just- another oversight. He was the only one in the family that needed looking after, at least until their mother had gotten sick. Anastas shrunk a little in on himself.

After a moment, Ascelin veered off course and walked into him, almost knocking Anya over.

“Ack-hey! Ascelin!” Anastas shot the man a disbelieving look. “Are you feeling quite well?”

Ascelin grimaced, and Anastas belatedly realized that maybe it wasn’t an assault. “I… I don’t know. Your sister used to do that to me.”

“My sister used to _body slam you?”_ Anya demanded, latching onto a topic besides ‘someone broke into your house, while you were dreaming of something breaking into your house, and someone else followed it in and killed it.’

“ _Bodyslam_ \- I barely touched you-”

Anastas bristled and glared up at his company. “You almost knocked me into the gutter is what you did! I’m smaller than you, do you realize?”

Ascelin’s claws jerked up, snatching at nothing beside him in frustration. “Kid, I’m pretty sure there are _dogs_ bigger than you, _so yes I noticed…!_ ”

Anastas was going to snap at him (again), but then they turned onto the main road, and there were other people around, and the hunter just - stopped arguing.

Ascelin’s posture faded from frazzled and annoyed to the upright, proud gait of a cleric walking to services. His face relaxed into solemn unconcern, while his hands relaxed and hung at his sides. Well - for a moment, until he reached up and patted at his hat. Anastas blinked a few times, processing the realization that Ascelin was trying to conceal his hair under it. 

_Well. I supposed the color is a_ _ **little**_ _unusual_. He allotted in the privacy of his thoughts. He didn’t think he’d seen anyone else with hair the color of seaweed. 

It was a mostly pointless gesture, though, because people didn’t seem to want to look at them. The Choir hunter sped his steps at the gate, heading towards a place Anastas had only seen the spires of before, and only at a distance - Oedon Chapel. 

They walked past it to a gatehouse with a winding stairway down, which seemed to go on and on before spitting them out somewhere low and dark. The buildings there were dirt, and hewed them in like a storybook’s dark forest, with the sky only a faint hint of blue high above their heads.

By the time they made it down those stairs, Anastas was buzzing with nerves. They passed through a twilight place, through the tunnel of an overpass, and back into the morning sun. His eyes hurt from the change, and he blinked and rubbed at them, wishing the light were less dazzling. Just past the break in the buildings there was a fenced off property which caught Anastas’s eye, mostly because it was twilight and did not hurt so badly to gaze on. It was a fenced hill and little valley, all lined with flowers, with a charming wooden building on the highest point and a massive tree a little lower on the hill. It looked like it butted up to the base of- Anastas craned his head to look, and realized the Church’s Workshop was the tower they’d walked by, and therefore the lot at the bottom must have been the Hunter's workshop, the original one. He stared at it in astonishment.

Then Ascelin pulled him away, deeper into the ward, and the _smell_ of it hit them- smoke, waste, oil, and meat lingered together to create a nauseating cocktail for anyone unfortunate enough to breathe it in. Anastas coughed and pushed his hands to his face.

“ _Oh my god._ ”

Ascelin didn’t even glance at him. Of course, he didn’t seem bothered by the odour beyond the curl of his lip, either.

They took a twisting route through the streets towards the neighborhood one street over from where Anastas had grown up, and when they came to the right strip it took him a moment to place his own house where it was perched overhead; the cliff that the family house was on seemed so much steeper from the bottom. Anastas looked at Vasilissa’s balcony and tried to decide what sort of creature could just- climb to it, or jump to it. Maybe if they started on the roof? But how would they get to the roof…

There were a handful of huntsmen milling around the patch below his house, and one hulking man in grey clothes who was carrying a great hammer. Anastas stumbled before he realized the robes were familiar. _Executioner_.

None of the onlookers were silent, but they were quiet, perhaps in deference to the hunters. As they drew nearer Anastas listened to the crowd, and felt unsteady.

“Scourge is getting worse-”

“The beasts are bolder! Soon they’ll be-”

“-it’s inauspicious, it is-”

The choir hunter wove his way through the mass of onlookers, and Anastas hurried behind him before the path could close again, and when the Hunter stopped short Anya was forced up close behind him by the press of bodies. He wasn’t thrilled to be so close to the hunter: under the scent of rosemary there was weapons polish and blood and something that set his hair on end, an unforgettable reminder that he was holding himself beside someone who’d made themselves into a weapon for the Church.

As curious as the rest of them, with dread coating him like a sticky film, Anastas leaned around the Hunter’s shoulder and looked.

The _thing_ they’d all gathered around was-

Massive humped shoulders like on the back of a work animal. Clumps of long fur, tangled and matted on the ground, drifting in the morning wind. It was horrifying, but it was – well, dead. He couldn't place what it was that made him want to back away from it.

It was the biggest scourge beast he’d ever seen, remarkably different in form and face than the wolfish things which would prowl the outskirts of Old Yharnum. It almost resembled a bear more, but - what else could it be but a new face of the monsters which made the Cathedral Ward shut down the bridge every night?

He could hear, at the edge of his awareness, the huntsman arguing about a pyre.

The executioner stepped forward, adjusting his grip on his hammer. Anastas tensed. The choir hunter looked up at the man and bowed his head.

“Is the boy involved?” The executioner’s voice was low and rumbling. Anastas shuddered under his regard and tried to press a little closer behind Ascelin, although he knew that source of protection was more than dubious.

The Choir hunter shook his head. “No. I was escorting him to a chapel when I heard the commotion.” He said.

Anastas licked his lips and shrunk back, reaching up to grip the Church tabard on Ascelin's robes.

Ascelin shifted and stood up a little straighter, turning his head to the executioner. “What do you make of it?” 

The man rumbled low in his chest and adjusted the grip on his hammer. “We’ve given too much ground. Need to stamp these things out the moment we catch the first hint of something unclean.”

He looked at Anastas again, and Anastas remembered the laundry woman recoiling from the sight of his eyes. He averted his gaze and wondered what was so off about him that two people now seemed to think he was sick with scourge.

“How do you decide what signs are damnable, though?” The Choir hunter wondered. “The eyes? Half the hunters in this city keep them covered for a reason.”

The executioner took a small step back, which was really rather strange when he was head and shoulders above Ascelin.

Anastas chanced looking away from the man and back at the corpse. The breeze had stopped, but the fur was still drifting in the air. Like an electrical current was keeping it that way.

“If you could lift it up onto the cross,” Ascelin was saying, “I can light the flame.”

The executioner eyed him. “Do you have a torch?”

“You’re such a joker. Do you want my fire or not?” Ascelin asked. The cross was still well down the road, from what Anastas could see looking back. Its progress was being impeded by people stopping to stare at the mess at the cliff side.

“… will it catch without it?” The executioner murmured, toeing the body with his foot. The mass of flesh barely stirred. “Who the hell killed this thing? If not you. It's been hours and no one's seen anything.”

“I haven’t the foggiest.” Ascelin said, tapping his claws to his jaw, “But I would definitely remember going toe to toe with _that_.” Saying so, he moved closer - pulling Anya with him, because of Anya’s grip on his tabard - and nudged the creature with his boot like the executioner had. The movement was a little slow, and that caught Anastas’s eye, though he didn’t think anyone else but maybe the executioner had minded it.

Pressing closer to his guide, Anya looked down - examining the dark lumps of fur. He realized there were shreds of cloth in the mix, bandages and ruined clothes. And he saw something paler, flesh, a hand -

 _What?…_ Yes, there was a hand. Below the beast, mostly hidden in the fur of its belly. The Hunter had pressed it deeper there with his foot to hide it.

#

The body being raised on a cross to burn was a spectacle usually reserved for the night of the Hunt. How lucky he was to bear witness to it.

Though they’d bound it rather strangely, with the hands trussed behind it and the front of the body facing the ground. _To hide the flesh,_ Anastas thought, and felt sick. Why did it have a hand?

He stared at the face of the thing where it was downturned, almost- well, of course it wasn’t staring at him. It was dead. It was - unusual. Anastas had seen a few scourge beasts, and they usually looked like… wolves. Twisted, sickened, fairy story monster wolves. But- wolfish, anyway. Long muzzle, pointed ears, sharp teeth. Coarse fur, claws and a tail. White eyes like ghost lights. But this was- 

This one was wrong. It had red eyes, like Ascelin. Those were glassy in death, and starting to cloud over – and a large wedge for the nose, like-

Anastas realized what it looked like, and stopped thinking anything else at all. The chatter of people seemed very far away, and it was like waking from ~~from~~ a dream and realizing he was in a nightmare.

The executioner and huntsmen raised the pole up, and then Ascelin stepped forward with a flame dancing between his fingers, and lit the thing alight with a little bow and flourish which seemed so out of place that Anastas found himself stunned by it.

 _Was_ he dreaming?

The fire caught with supernatural quickness and raced up the body, until the whole thing was burning the same as if they’d tossed it with accelerant. The scent of burning hair was a different sort of horrible to the sick smell of the low town, and Anastas brought his hand up to press the cuff of his sleeve to his mouth and tried to breathe through that.

Ascelin stepped back until his shoulder brushed Anastas’s, and he stopped, still staring at the pyre. Anastas could not see his eyes for the metal helm he wore, and for the first time he hated that mask. Because of it he could not see Ascelin’s eyes, or guess at what he saw. From what Anastas could see, the man was- not satisfied, nor happy. He looked grim, like he was seeing a legion of live beasts, instead of the dead one burning.

_That thing was a person. That thing was- it had-_

_And the hunters have to_ _**know** _ _-_

Anastas shuddered. None of the huntsman seemed to have noticed it, and the executioner had said nothing. He wondered how many things he’d missed because someone hadn’t said so.

Then it hit him that _thing_ had been in his house and felt dizzy, so he brought a hand up and gripped the tabard hanging from Ascelin’s shoulders. He didn’t want to. But he thought if he fell to the ground here, he might never get up.

“Do me a favor,” He heard the Hunter mutter, barely audible over the crowd.

Anastas looked up, and —Ascelin wasn’t looking at him. No, he had his head tilted up towards the pyre. The skin around his mouth was tight, jaw clenched and nostrils flared, and his lip pulled back to flash his sharp teeth, and his always-pale skin was paper white. He looked more of a demon than a person, in that second. It was an expression of such naked loathing that it left Anastas breathless, and his heart thudding like a rabbit’s. 

Ascelin said, barely above a whisper, “ _Stay dead_ this time.”

And then he stepped back, almost knocking Anastas over. Anastas stumbled and hissed a complaint - the Kirkhammer was practically a concrete block with a sword stuck in it, and he didn’t want it near his face.

The hunter stirred from whatever gripped him, laughed a little and wiggled free of Anya’s grip.

Anastas made a discontent noise when Ascelin wrapped an arm around his shoulders, but when the hunter tried to draw him away from the pyre Anastas went with more speed than grace. “Careful, kid,” Ascelin muttered, then twisted his head back long enough to nod to someone, likely the Executioner. “We got places to be.”

Anastas crossed his arms to hide the nervous twitching of his fingers.

 _Stay dead this time_. Had Ascelin encountered something like that before? He’d moved the hand aside, and he’d whispered- that. Anastas felt like something was lodged in his throat, and his heart beat so loudly he thought everyone on the street must have been able to hear it.

 _Stay dead this time_. A man’s face on a beast’s body, a human hand peeking out from beneath the thick pelt of a monster.

He thought of the beggar crouching over a body, smiling at him, and chasing him down.

He thought of Ascelin smiling at him, and saying, ‘it was just a beast.’

He remembered that Ascelin was a liar. And he started to wonder why Ascelin had been near enough to help that night at all. His stomach cramped, and he shook. The arm around his shoulders tightened.

Anastas waited until they were through the lower ward, and passing through Oedon Chapel again, before he spoke.

“If I ask, can you even explain?” He said. Feeling the hunter hesitate, he added, “I heard what you said.”

 _And I saw the hand,_ he thought, but he flinched almost as soon as he considered it. Was that a topic he was willing to broach aloud? His mind rebelled from the notion.

Ascelin leaned down so his jaw almost brushed Anastas’s temple. “Maybe,” He suggested, quiet as befitted a chapel, “There are things you shouldn’t ask me.”

That was right. Ascelin was a member of the Choir. A high ranking church hunter.

If there were secrets to hold back, he probably had his fingers on the lock.

Ascelin had kept him alive. And he did seem to like him. But if Anastas became inconvenient - he might decide to cut his losses.

Anastas let his eyes slide away. “I forget myself. Pray forgive me, master hunter.”

Ascelin hummed and slid his arm off Anastas’s shoulders, but kept close as they walked up the steps to enter Oedon chapel.

The inside was beautiful, high vaulted ceilings with rows of arches on two of the walls, and thin clouds of incense drifting through the air. Light streamed in the tinted glass, and when Anastas looked up - just for a moment he thought he saw a great grasping hand. He looked again, and realized it was the outline of a tree. Still, something about it unsettled him- he turned his gaze away from the heavens, and back to the floor. There were statues and a multitude of urns littering the place, and a few people scattered around the crossing and apses praying and talking and leaving offerings. None of them looked up to see who was coming inside.

Up the stairway into the nave there were no parishioners, but there was a rug laid out surrounded by more urns, and several thuribles - the source of the incense. Seated between them like a living artifact was a spindly, frazzled-looking man, dressed in red robes, and with a gaunt, grey face. His eyes glittered in the sunlight, and Anastas didn’t think he was a hunter, but he was still - _something_. The man bowed his head to them as they passed. He was holding open a scroll in a script Anastas could not recognize.

Anastas met his eye and, feeling bad for bringing his troubles into a house of worship, dredged up a smile. Then he wondered if he’d made a mistake.

The man on the ground jerked back, his eyes widened, and he splayed his fingers on the page he was reading- and then his expression fairly melted and he smiled back, with such earnest pleasure that Anastas hurt a little for looking at it.

Ascelin didn’t notice any of it, which suited Anastas. He hadn’t forgotten the Grand Cathedral incident.

“Temple Keeper,” Ascelin paused by the door at the end, and turned a little towards the man. He sounded polite, but not personable. “Is the library open?”

“Ah- yes, good Hunter. It should be.” The man in red turned a little to gesture at the shut doors. “The door is unlocked. But, there is another Hunter in residence. I hope that is agreeable?”

Ascelin nodded to him. “Sure.” Then his face scrunched into an unfamiliar expression, and he waved a hand. “You, uh, enjoy that scroll, Agatha.”

Despite the awkwardness of the words, the man seemed pleased. He bowed his head and ushered them on.

“Is that his name?” Anastas asked in an undertone. “Agatha?”

Ascelin paused for half a step, which resulted in Anastas almost _tripping on the stone stairs._ He caught himself on the Choir robes and dared to look at the hunter, who was frowning at him.

“You know, I have no idea. But he’s never corrected me.”

… not for the first time, Anastas wondered what exactly had damaged Ascelin for him to behave as he did.

At the end of the chapel’s nave was a door, and it led to a long and narrow study. The shelves lining it teemed with books, so many they spilled over and off their perches and into piles and towers on the floor, the counters, the table, beside the chairs. There was something that looked a little like a globe, too. And as promised, another hunter was settled in a plush chair and picking through a book at the table.

Ascelin eyed her a moment before he walked past. “Good to see you, Sister.”

“Choir Hunter.” The woman responded absently, not rising from her seat. She had her cheek pressed to her fist, and was examining the book as if it were keeping some interesting prize from her. “Picking up rent boys, now?”

Anastas frowned, and Ascelin twitched, a frown passing across his mouth. “… no.” He said, the faintest edge of irritation lacing his voice.

“Oh. My mistake.” The huntress turned a page.

Anastas bit his tongue, took a breath. Then he sat across from her. “I do beg your pardon,” He said, tilting his head with a smile. “I am Anastas Vasilevich Volkov. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

The woman’s eyes slid off the book. “… oh,” She sat up to examine him. “My apologies. I did not recognize you.”

 _Because you barely looked up from your reading,_ Anastas thought, still smiling. “Perfectly alright. I don’t much resemble my parents, I know. But it really is such an honor to meet you, miss-”

The hunter’s eyes narrowed. “Ascelin. Get your pet.”

“Ha? No. You upset him, you deal with it.” Ascelin was walking the length of the study, dragging the pad of the finger along the spines of the books. He sighed in disappointment when he reached the end, then crouched and started to dig through the fantastic mess on the floor.

Anastas got up from the table, since he wasn’t wanted there, and turned to examine the books nearby. The selection was a little strange.

Some of them just had emblems on the cover, or the spine. Recognizable ones - like the symbol of Caryll, the famed scholar of Byrgenwerth. Others he could make no clear sense of, like a narrow crescent of gold embossed over a dark moon. Some he could not even look at - his vision blurred and his head hurt until he would let his eyes stray from the offender.

And… Some titles were a little morbid, but ordinary enough. Things they had in their own library, even.

“ _A treatise on eyes”;_ “ _The Labrinths Beneath Our Feet”; “History of the Hunt”_

Anastas kept looking, leaning in a little.

… _ah…_

His finger stalled over one battered brown book, with _“The Tragedy of Mensis”_ written on the spine.

Anastas glanced at the huntress, who’d buried herself back in the tome she was reading. Then he hooked his fingers around the last title and slid it off the shelf. With care befitting the aging binding, he set it on the counter and flipped open til he found the introduction.

He was still reading it when Ascelin came sweeping by and caught him by the shoulder. Anastas snatched for the book- he dragged it off the counter as Ascelin hauled him away, and hurried to stash it on his person. He’d barely got it under his capelet before the huntress at the table looked up at them.

Well. Looking to _Ascelin,_ to Anastas’s gratitude.

“Thieving now?” She asked, the picture of bored disapproval. “What will your Conductor say?” Anastas noticed she made no gesture toward stopping them, so he marked it down as a perfunctory performance.

“That she always knew I was a knave and that someday I’d disappoint her.” Ascelin shrugged. “But there’s no need to tattle. These aren’t even forbidden texts.”

The woman rolled her eyes at them – her pupils looked normal, to Anastas’s relief - waved her hand, and went back to her reading.

Anastas tried not to think about the fact that he was stealing from a temple. He’d bring the book back! He just… needed to read it first.

(What else didn’t he know? Why did his sister care about Mensis? If Ascelin knew, he wasn’t telling.)

Ascelin tugged on his arm, and they went up the stairs and back into the nave. Anastas eyed the pile of books Ascelin was carrying. They included such titles as “A History of the Covenant”, “The Lost Artes” and - Anastas squinted.

A book on musical theory…?

When they were further away, and the door shut, Ascelin paused. “It’s probably not wise to antagonize Sophia,” He didn’t look down at Anastas, and Anastas watched his lips twitched, “But you have my grudging admiration for the attempt.”

Anastas squinted at him. He supposed Sophia was the huntress. He tested Ascelin’s grip on his arm and sighed. Solid, unfortunately.

“Already going?” The temple keeper looked surprised. He was seated the same as before, but he’d switched his scroll out for a massive book bound with foreign leather.

“Something came up.” Ascelin tilted his head to the man and managed to look passingly apologetic. “I’ll see you later. Ah- and I’ll return the books, of course.”

The temple keeper smiled at them, eyes creasing at the corners. He looked a bit less startling when he was happy. “I never doubted you, good Hunter.” The man waved goodbye to them.

By then Ascelin was already dragging Anastas away, and Anastas had to twist in his grip to wave back. The book he had taken felt heavy where it was tucked safe in the inner pocket of his capelet.

#

  
  
  


They went through the square, into the ward, past the church gate, then a road on the left. And Ascelin stopped there and pulled Anastas aside.

“I need to see someone,” Ascelin told him, head and voice low to keep out eavesdroppers. Whenever anyone would pass too close by - say, within six feet of them - he would pause in speaking, and turn a baleful stare on them which was invisible for the Blindfold helm, but had an unfortunate weight anyway. Those people backed off.

It wasn’t a comparison Anastas wanted to draw, but he felt a little like a princess, being guarded by the world’s most ornately garbed dragon. 

_And I’m never sure if he’s going to pat me on the head or threaten to eat me,_ He thought, equal parts sick from annoyance and nervous remembering the beast on the pyre. 

“I need you somewhere safe.” Ascelin said. 

_Stay dead this time_. Anastas stared up at him and thinned his lips.

“So you’re going to go up this road and find the Servant’s Ward- you can remember that?”

Anastas replayed the words in his head and wondered where Ascelin was going that he didn’t want Anya to follow. The sun was out, and there were so many people around. Maybe he would be okay alone for a little while, when it was like this?

Anastas’s heart skipped. “Yes.” He said, and reminded himself that at least here someone might hear him scream and consider helping. “I’m sixteen, you know.”

Ascelin paused and frowned, tipping his head like he could see through the mask he wore, and sort of looked Anastas over. “Really? But you’re so-” He brought up a hand, like he was going to measure where the top of Anastas’s head came to on his person, then stopped and shook himself out. “Nevermind, I don’t have time for this.”

Anastas curled his lip back. “I’m going to find the Servant’s Ward,” He said, to prove that he was capable of short-term recall.

“ _Good.”_ Ascelin gestured up the road. “Find the Servant’s Ward, look for the pop up market. Ask around for NiBrennan’s laundry, they’ll point you where you need to go. Don’t give your name around here, and talk as low as you can manage.” Ascelin paused, then clarified, “Talk like _me,_ not like a society kid.”

“So I should curse?” Anastas had not been serious, so of course Ascelin nodded in agreement. Anastas’s expression pinched in dislike. “ _Fine_. What do I do when I find the laundry?”

“Stay put until I can get you.” Ascelin nudged a hand against his shoulder. “And don’t fucking wander off, I guess you’re at that age, but if something happens to you _I will kill you._ ”

Anastas’s heart juddered, and he raised his chin anyway. “If I’m dead, you can’t really do anything.” 

_Stay-_

Ascelin pointed a finger under his chin. He didn’t look like a demon now. He looked a little like a frazzled governess, and Anastas struggled to reconcile the image with the malice that had lit up his face just hours prior. 

“I will find a way to bring you back.” Ascelin promised him, “Now _shoo._ ”

Anastas was pretty sure the Church hadn’t actually brought back the dead, so the threat fell a little flat. That seemed like something they’d want to make an announcement about. 

He rolled his eyes at Ascelin, though he wasn’t sure the man could see it, then turned to head up the walk. A few steps in he looked over his shoulder, and there were still people milling around, but Ascelin’s distinctive hair and robes were gone.

Fat lot of help he was. Anastas shook his head, anxious and annoyed, and turned to head uphill. 

_Pale fingers. Red eyes. A human’s face, warped by-_ nightmares, it was a nightmare, he’d seen a shape from his dreams breathed into the world. 

“ _Stay dead this time.”_ Ascelin was… probably going to do something about that. Right?… Anastas hoped so, but he had no way of knowing. So what he could focus on was- was trusting Ascelin, and finding the place he wanted Anya to go, and - staying put there. And he hated it, that he couldn’t turn and walk home, that the place he’d grown up in wasn’t safe anymore, that the only adult he could rely on was a mercurial Hunter and a stranger besides. He didn’t really know Ascelin - he’d spent a few days around him, but that had been on the hunter’s terms. Thinking he probably wouldn’t let Anastas die was one thing, but- he couldn’t ask half the questions he wanted to, and the not-knowing made his skin crawl.

At least he had the book. If Vasya had been looking into Mensis, maybe he could figure something out from a text about them. It was certainly worth a shot-

… then he followed the turn in the road, and the air hit him, and he stopped and looked up. 

The world fell away. Anastas stared out at the expanse of open sky and deep water, and he forgot- for half a moment, he forgot everything, because stretched out in front of him was an expanse of nothing so big he could never have imagined it, looking out at the piled up rooftops of his city. He breathed in the air: cold and damp like before a storm. The sky was so big without walls and spires to hem it in, and the water glittered and dazzled him, and- he realized it wasn’t empty at all, there were so many boats floating in the harbour and birds wheeling through the air and the crash of the waves below him was so, so _loud_.

Anastas clenched his fists and turned to head up the path, but he kept looking back to the ocean, his cheeks flushed and his heart pounding. He realized that he couldn’t recall ever seeing it before, and maybe that was strange, when he lived in a city on the coastline. If he’d been to the shore it was Before, when Vera was alive and their parents were well and Vasilissa smiled more than she frowned, and- he would have been so young then.

It was beautiful, so much that it seemed to intimidate everything that looked down on it. The houses along the stretch were small, tucked in between temples and chapels and churches like they were trying to hide, and scrubby plants clung to the cliff-side and climbed over rooftops with grasping tendrils like long slender fingers.

Every time the wind blew, he could feel the sea spray on his skin, icy cold and salty and stinging. His lungs ached from breathing it.

There was a pop-up market along the roadside, people hawking food and home goods and liquors of dubious origin. Everyone was in rougher clothes than he was used to, and some of them were smiling right in the street. Anastas was not the only one with dark skin on this stretch, which was - strange, but pleasantly so. He mostly went unnoticed.

There was a man checking his pocketwatch that, after a moment, Anastas deemed safe to approach. “Excuse me,” Anastas called, and watched him startle. “Sorry to trouble you. Do you know the area?”

The man’s eyes searched him a moment before he nodded, and pocketed the watch.

Anastas smiled at him. “Would you point me to NiBrennan’s laundry, if you could?”

The man blinked, eyed his clothes again, nodded slowly. He raised a hand to point up the road, towards an alley entrance.

Anastas blinked. Oh, okay, he was going to get murdered. Awesome. “Thank you.” He turned to jog up the street to at least have a look.

… It didn’t seem like a mugger’s walk. The alley was actually full of shops, although - probably in deference to the pop up market - they were mostly shuttered. People were walking through it, too, but less than on the street proper. A mother in a patched dress with her child walking alongside her, a young man smoking a pipe on a stoop, several boys around Anastas’s age who were crowding around-

He was pretty sure that was a magazine, and not a clean one, from how they were trying to shy away from anyone else who passed by.

Probably safe to walk down. He stepped into the alley and checked the signs in passing. Most of the shops were multistory, and had plants in the windows or on little balconies. A dog poked its head from one apartment and barked at him, making him startle and then laugh.

There was a bend at the end of the alley, and that section had - less people, and was a bit darker. The residents of it were all adults, and none of them looked at Anastas as he passed them by. The scent of blood and earth lingered in the alley, barely hiding under the sea breeze, and revealed whenever he moved too close to someone.

A person melted off the brick wall beside a building with peeling plaster and boarded windows, and Anastas turned to look - the man met his eyes, grinned, and wiggled his fingers in greeting.

Anastas’s heart jumped. “Have you been following me?”

It was the intruder from his home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I maintain that all hunters have incredibly poor social boundaries but we go more into that in 8.  
> Also we finally get an idea of how little Anastas actually is and I hope that makes every previous chapter hit different. 
> 
> Also I suck and Anastas's birthday was a week ago and I didn't think about that til like, yesterday, I need to draw the poor kid after torturing him all month.


	8. Obedience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ascelin has to deal with some fall out from his miscalculations.  
> Meanwhile Anastas has to continue dealing with poorly socialized hunters, like the one that broke into his house and made him tea a few hours ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to MissMonie, cloudycats, Myoutakara, CottonCandyHaze, MapleNinja, and my poor beleaguered sister- seriously, this fic would not be the same without the comments you guys have made, here or on Skype, and whether you realized it at the time or not. <3

Anastas could follow directions without getting abducted, right? Twelve-year-olds had to be capable of that. (There was no way the kid was sixteen. He was just too little and wide-eyed for that- Ascelin could probably use him as an arm rest!) When Ascelin had been his age he’d been capable of listening to directions!

(… well. By the time he was twelve, he was in the orphanage, and he had little choice about obedience, because being capable and being willing were very different beasts.) 

Ascelin really hoped Anya would cave to anxiety and authority, though, because Ascelin needed to talk to the head of the church hunters, and he didn’t want to explain his tagalong atop that. Not when he had so many unanswered questions.

Not that he wanted to talk to Ludwig at all - he really didn’t - or that he felt afraid. It was just that - well. The math had changed.

Either things were getting back up after Ascelin killed them, which was a problem, or the scourge was changing. Which was. Hmm. He wasn’t actually sure which was worse. Both options were terrible.

The last significant change had been Old Yharnum. Without a doubt, Ludwig needed telling.

So Ascelin went to the apartments nearest the Grand Cathedral and, er, let himself in the backdoor.

He pocketed his knife and slid inside. Locks were for peasants.

The building was elegant, with vaulted hallways and gold leaf on the doors. There were floor to ceiling windows on one side of the hall. There was a strip of daylight visible at the top over thick velvet drapes. The little light that streamed down was diffused and gentle, not dazzling to the sensitive eye.

The residents should have all been clergy. The air smelled like blood and rosemary, and a little of incense. The scent was a little nauseating to Ascelin - it reminded him of the Conductor’s office - so he didn’t visit often, and had to think to recall where his boss actually… lived.

Ludwig’s flat was somewhere on the wall adjacent to the Cathedral, on the ground floor. He should probably have been asleep now, if he wasn’t doing paperwork-

The end of the hall was quiet. The smell of church incense was strongest there, overlaid with blood that smelled so strongly that it made Ascelin twitch, and something else which put him in the mind of the Research Hall.

He grit his teeth against it and knocked on the door.

No one answered, but he could hear someone move inside. 

“Sir,” He called, “I know you are not taking callers now, but the matter is urgent.”

He thought he heard a groan of complaint, and then someone padding towards the door. It unlocked, unbolted, and creaked open. Ludwig leaned in the doorway and blinked down at him, sleep-bleary.

“Choir Hunter Carim?” He mumbled, brow creasing like he couldn’t figure out _why_ Ascelin was at his apartment. “Is something the matter?”

Ascelin’s claws twitched. “It would be a better conversation to have inside.” He glanced down the hall, indicating the many other doors in the place.

Ludwig’s brows arched high on his forehead. He sighed and shuffled to the side, allowing Ascelin entrance, and Ascelin tried not to think about the fact that his boss was a person with an apartment who slept sometimes because the psychological discomfort might actually kill him.

“You know,” Ludwig walked towards the kitchenette and put the kettle on the hob, then crouched to light the stove, “The last time a Choir Member woke me and said something like that, it was to report Prospector Vorona’s defection.”

Ascelin didn’t flinch. “To my awareness, no research documents have been destroyed at this time.”

“That’s a relief.” Ludwig said, not looking encouraged. He took out some tea cups. “So if not that, what _has_ gone wrong?”

Ascelin bit the inside of his mouth. How to say… “The anomaly you assigned me,” He said, testing the words, “There’s been a complication.”

“Are you telling me you didn’t kill it?” Ludwig looked up, brow creasing and lips going thin with displeasure. He put down the tea tin he was holding and gripped the counter, until the pale knuckles turned white.

 _Maybe I'll see under it today,_ Ascelin thought, _the fairy tale knight_.

“I did.” He laced his hands behind him. “Perhaps twice now. And a third death which appears to have been the work of a carrion thief.”

Ludwig straightened to his full height. “You’re certain it’s the same creature?”

“I’m not.” Ascelin’s claws pricked his palms. “But as it stands, either it is an anomaly which can regenerate as hunters do - or there are multiple beasts of a new variety, and it is a sign of the scourge’s evolution. In that case: some beasts are changing into something bigger, and which is wreathed by lightning.”

Ludwig, already a pale man, went sheet-white and leaned on the counter. His voice came out near silent. “ _Fuck_.”

Ascelin was delighted. He tried not to show that on his face.

Ludwig brought up a hand to push the hair from his forehead.“What’s causing it?” 

Ascelin stared past him at the wall. Ah. Here was the part he really didn’t want to own up to. “I am not positive, however: it seems a church Hunter began killing unafflicted parishioners, sir. At least on the last Hunt, but perhaps before. With the outbreak, it is not difficult to conceal predatory behavior.”

Ludwig pushed himself off of the counter and straightened his shoulders. “How long before?” He asked, “How much damage did they bring about?”

“They made it into a house in the Ward,” Ascelin shut his eyes, remembering the corpse, and the blood splatter. “The woman living there was a recluse. When I found her, the body had electrical burns and - teeth marks.” He paused to let that sink in.

Ludwig looked like a statue, except for his expression, which grew darker and darker with every bit of information. He waved, so Ascelin continued.

“I found the beast’s trail after, and tracked it as far as the Oedon Graveyard, where I dispatched it. It was identical to the creature burned in the Lower Ward today.” Ascelin thinned his lips. “But the week following, I found the remains of two rough sleepers. Their bodies were burned as the woman’s had been, and lacerated. There may be others that have gone undiscovered.”

It was no real hardship disposing of bodies, if you knew where to go, or what to say when you got there. Ascelin’s best guess for the ones he’d found had been either cockiness from the killer, or else some interruption - say, another hunter entering the area - had forced him to abandon the bodies before he could deal with them properly. 

“At least?” Ludwig grimaced, showing his eye teeth. “Why did you not report it sooner?”

“I only had suspicions. I kept an eye on the situation until I had something actionable.” Ascelin demurred. “When I caught him red-handed and apparently senseless, I struck him down.”

“Except that you think he came back.” Ludwig narrowed his eyes til they were glittering yellow slits.

Ascelin nodded. “At this point, I don't believe he was senseless.”

“I suppose you did what you ought to have, in the circumstances.” Another voice intoned, dark and lyrical. “But. In the future, you will report to one of us the _moment_ a hunter wants disposing of.”

Ascelin shut his eyes and counted to five.

“Vicar Laurence. Your Grace.” He said, not turning his head. “How lovely it is to see you.”

 _Outside the Cathedral_ , he didn’t add, nor _inside of my boss’s apartment_.

“Choir Hunter. You aren't keeping secrets,” Laurence said, walking up beside him, not touching but close enough that Ascelin could feel the middling heat of his body, “Are you?”

What a nonsensical question.

“I did not think to trouble your Grace or the Holy Blade with such a trifling matter.” Ascelin’s eyes flickered to Laurence, who was smiling at him in a way devoid of kindness, or life. It made the man look a little like a sculpture. “And of course, when I discovered it was not trifling, I came straightaway.”

“Hmm.” Laurence dropped the smile and gave him a look of open consideration, then brushed past Ludwig to investigate the tea leaves.

Ludwig glanced at Laurence, then back to Ascelin. His brows were furrowed, and he sort of looked like a dog who’d been kicked.

Ascelin felt his heart soften, a _little_ , then immediately became annoyed with himself. “I’ll be sure to do that in the future, Grace. It was only that I lacked proof of wrongdoing. When he attacked someone in front of me, I assumed him to be senseless, and cut him down.”

“Noble.” Laurence mused, “Only that your story doesn’t add up, entirely.” He stroked his fingers over the teapot and smiled at nothing. “I haven’t heard even a flicker of a rumor about a hunter going mad… unless you mean to say you silenced the victim, as well as the hunter? Or at least failed to _save_ them.”

Ascelin’s eyes flickered toward him, and he was grateful for the metal concealing them. “My _story_ is that I acted to save the Church from a great deal of embarrassment, Grace.” He raised his chin and refused to dignify the second accusation the Vicar had leveled him with at all.

Laurence turned toward him, fingers twitching against the tin in his hands like he was thinking of his Threaded Cane. “By concealing things from your leaders until they were convenient for you, you mean?”

Ascelin pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth and reminded himself he wouldn't be useful if the Vicar flayed him.

“Do you know,” Laurence said, staring him down, “I think I would like to see your face for this explanation. Take off the helm.”

Ascelin’s claws dug further into his palms. He took a breath. “If it will please you, Grace.” It didn’t matter if they saw him, he reminded himself. It wasn’t as if he was really _lying_. He still hesitated before reaching up, and when he removed the blindfold helm he brought it to grasp in front of him like it could offer a sliver of its usual protection. He breathed, and did not look at either of his superiors.

(Laurence and Ludwig had both seen his face. They knew him, the same as the Choir knew him. He just needed to remind himself of that.)

Laurence cocked his head and stepped a little closer, leaning in to examine Ascelin’s eyes. Ludwig, too, was looking at him - frowning, but staying at a distance that made Ascelin grateful in some private part of his mind.

“Well,” The Vicar mused, “At least we know you haven’t fallen to bloodlust yourself.”

Ludwig shifted. “Laurence- perhaps this is a conversation I could have with my Hunter,” He started, in the careful way of someone who did not want to cause offense.

Ascelin shot him a disgruntled look for the proprietary term. He was not _anyone’s_ hunter, thank you.

“I do believe it concerns me,” Laurence leaned on the counter beside Ludwig, in a pointed gesture of 'I am not going anywhere’.

Ludwig stared down at him helplessly, despite that he towered over the Vicar head and shoulders and could probably lift him one-handed.

 _Though in battle,_ Ascelin thought, not looking directly at either of them, _I would probably rather face the Holy Sword than the Threaded Cane._ He’d seen them hunt, and Ludwig at least killed things quickly. Laurence-

“Well?” Laurence prompted. “You were making a case, Choir Hunter.”

\- Laurence made sure he bled them, first.

Ascelin’s eyes flickered again. “One of the Harrowed was the culprit.” He reminded himself that at the end of this, he was only a cleric making a report to his superiors.

Incongruously, Ludwig - relaxed at this news, just a little. “A Harrowed.” He murmured, sinking back into himself. “You're certain?”

Ascelin nodded. “Positive. In the process of pursuing an unafflicted parishioner, he delivered himself into my arms. I have reason to believe the Harrowed discovered that Parishioner was isolated, and targeted them for that reason.”

“Which parishioner?” Both of them asked. Laurence had a dark air that usually led to someone being assigned damage control, and Ludwig looked - well, distressed and concerned again. Very Ludwig in general. 

(Ascelin had to suppose that keeping up public relations for the Church Hunters was its own nightmare.)

Ascelin was about to open his mouth and spin the most boring iteration of the truth he could think of, when Laurence raised a finger. “Wait.”

Obediently, Ascelin shut his mouth and waited.

“You traded for that route,” Laurence crossed his arms, and brought his hand up to tap his cheek, “I remember signing off on the paperwork. I thought it strange at the time.”

“ _I_ signed off on the paperwork,” Ludwig muttered.

“ _No_ , you fell asleep on my desk while we discussed fund allocation.” Laurence muttered back, and crossed his arms. “Stop working tripleshifts and sleep at home.” Then he looked at Ascelin again. “Why.”

Ascelin sent a prayer to Ebrietus. “I was watching over a friend’s house.” He said. “She has been- indisposed.”

Laurence smiled, though this time he looked genuinely humored. “Try again, Carim. You don't have friends.”

“Laurence!” Ludwig turned a wide-eyed, pale-faced look on the Vicar. “He has friends.” Ludwig paused, then turned a look of appeal on Ascelin. “You have friends.”

Ascelin was unwilling to involve himself in an argument that he had no investment in. “A mark's house if you prefer, Vícar.” He shrugged a little at the look he got for that, from the both of them. “In any case, it was fortuitous. We know more than we did.”

Laurence eyed him, then turned away to finish brewing tea. “You think beasts are beginning to regenerate?”

“… I believe it to be a serious possibility. The body did not dissipate in a few hours, so I had it burned. But that doesn’t - mean anything, does it.”

“Sometimes the process is delayed.” Laurence allotted. “If another comes back. I think it would do better to capture it.”

Ascelin inclined his head to acknowledge the command.

Ludwig shifted between them, like it was enough to avoid them seeing eachother to prevent conflict. 

Ascelin glanced up at him and then away, waiting to be excused.

Ludwig brought up his hands, but didn’t touch him. He spoke gently, “Thank you for bringing this information to me, Carim,” 

… Like Ascelin was a deer that would be scared away if he spoke too loudly. 

“Could I ask what made you - ah, decide to bring it forward today?”

Hadn’t he said enough? Ascelin’s lips thinned, and Ludwig added, “Please. Humor me.”

So Ascelin glanced at the head of the church, dumping sugar cubes into two tea cups. Then he glanced at Ludwig again and wondered what the angle was today.

“I found beast pellets.” He said, “And the beast smelled like another Hunter under the blood. But what concerned me was the hand.” He crossed his arms behind him. “You are aware of the results of the Kin experiments.”

Ludwig’s brow furrowed. “Passingly. You will explain the relevance?”

“Exposure to holy artifacts,” Ascelin thought of the research hall, and all the bodies inside. “In conjunction with the sedatives and trepanation, induces a rapid transformation. The method is imperfect- parts of the body remain human.” His claws twitched, “Such as a leg, or an eye, or a hand. The beast that was burned in the Lower Ward this morning had evidence of a similarly rapid transformation.”

Laurence carried over the tea cups and pushed one on Ludwig. He tilted his head to regard Ascelin, grave looking and with his eyes aglitter. “The scourge warps the limbs first. Then the body, the face.”

Ascelin bowed so he could stop being scrutinized, and to acknowledge that he was aware of how the scourge progressed. “I do recall Old Yharnum.”

(Old Yharnum was the first time he'd been taken seriously since the orphanage aptitude tests. How could he ever forget it?)

“You would swear to this?” Ludwig had fixed the whole of his attention on Ascelin, and was regarding him the same way Ascelin sometimes observed prey. 

“Yes. A member of the executioners was also present, the one who wields a great-hammer. He can attest to the strangeness of the limb - he bound it to the cross himself. My concern is, again, that this beast will regenerate.”

“From ash?” Ludwig, for once, looked his age.

“It showed cunning. It did not act like a beast.” Ascelin shifted, “And I do not believe it to be one, in the sense of something slavering and mindless.”

“… gods.” Ludwig shut his eyes and spoke haltingly. “If it’s yet a Harrowed-”

It could show up at any lantern at any point. Ascelin glanced at the window with its drawn curtains, and curled his lip.

“If it won’t stay dead,” Laurence cut in, “Then it must be captured. I won’t have it rampaging and causing a panic in the ward.”

“I’ll pull someone aside tonight.” Ludwig assured, then turned his gaze back to Ascelin. Inexplicably, his eyes softened. 

“I mean it. You’ve done well bringing this to me. Please, don’t hesitate to do so if you find something else of concern.”

Ascelin tilted his head back. “May I be pardoned, your Grace?”

“Yes,” Ludwig smiled. “Of course. Thank you, I will see you tonight.”

Ascelin hoped he could sleep before then. “Thank you, Chief Hunter Ludwig.” He bowed at the waist. “Pray forgive the intrusion.” He retreated toward the door.

He was escaping into the hall when Laurence spoke up, far closer behind him than he really wanted the man to be.

“If you keep something like this from Ludwig again,” Laurence called, and Ascelin stopped walking and turned to face him. The Vicar stood behind him in the doorway, too still and too quiet to seem entirely human. His cleric’s robes and the teacup he held were like a poorly fitted disguise. 

“Then I will take it personally. And I will make time to handle you myself.” Laurence quirked his lips in a facsimile of smiling. “Thank you for your hard work, Choir Hunter.”

It was probably the eyes, Ascelin decided. “I apologize again for intruding.” Ludwig’s eyes still looked human in the light. Laurence’s didn’t - he always looked like he was considering his next angle of attack. Since Ascelin hadn’t been born when the man had made his contract, it was hard to say whether they had ever looked differently. “Of course I’ll come back with any new information.”

Laurence waved him off. “We’ve moved on from that topic.” He took a drink of tea. “The child you brought into the church. Was that the one who delivered you the Harrowed?”

Ascelin tilted his head back. “My Vicar, I am not sure why you would assume so?”

“The timeline matches up.” Laurence mused, apparently to walk himself through it. “You paid for the ministration out of your stipend. I wonder why you would do that?”

Ascelin wanted to put his helm back on. He didn’t answer.

The Vicar gave him a thin, syrupy smile. “Yes. I thought maybe you wouldn't want to share your reasoning. I suppose a man is allotted a few secrets, providing they don't interfere with his work.” 

Ascelin bit down on his tongue. He’d already back-talked a good deal today, and he suspected his credit was running rather thin. He dug his claws into his helm and waited.

Laurence leaned closer, until Ascelin could twitch out his finger and touch the founder of the Healing Church. He didn't - he was very aware that Laurence could call fire to his fingers, and would put Ascelin alight for such a trespass.

“Don’t embarrass the Choir, Hunter.” Laurence held his teacup delicately between his pale hands. “Ludwig overlooks your indiscretions because he is good-natured, and because he remembers where you came from. If you would like not to be cast back- I suggest you do not _push_.”

Ludwig was certainly _something_. But Ascelin did not trust water he couldn't see the bottom of, and found one’s nature to be rather a similar affair: a good-natured man with no temper Ascelin could uncover was not one Ascelin could bring himself to trust.

Ascelin exhaled and summoned a little smile. “If that’s all that concerns you, Vicar.” He turned his gaze to the floor and arranged himself to an appropriately demure posture. “I can assure you we want the same thing. I will not sully the reputation of my one refuge.”

Laurence watched him a long while before spinning on the ball of his foot. “… Have a good day, Ascelin of Carim.” He disappeared into the apartment, and the door swung shut behind him.

#

  
  
  


Ascelin dropped his shoulders, put on his helm, and left.

He went home to his apartment. He checked his rat traps, found one live, took it. Tossed it into the crate his latest test subject was living out of on the way to his chest. He changed, and he washed quickly in the basin, and then he stumbled into bed face-first. He would bathe properly after sleeping. Yes. 

He passed out and dreamt of Vasilissa, laughing in his face, and holding something shining out of reach.

#

The man who’d broken into his home gave Anastas a pleasant smile. “I only had to stay behind you long enough to find out where you were going.” He said, like it was a perfectly normal thing to do when you wanted a word with someone.

Nothing creepy about that!

Anastas stared at him. “Yes,” He said, “Of course. That makes perfect sense. And you would go to that trouble because-?”

“Oh, right. Something you said bothered me.” The intruder moved to walk beside Anastas as if they were friends on a stroll.

Anastas scanned the alley around them and wondered if he could outrun a hunter for the second time that month.

“A lot of what I said seemed to bother you,” The route ahead of them was a no, but maybe if he ducked and doubled back he could outstrip the man… “But if I can ease your concerns-”

“Wow, was that sarcasm?” The intruder laughed into his glove. “You’re so cute. Ah, your heart is like a little rabbit’s. I couldn’t hurt you if I wanted to.” He grinned at Anastas, and Anastas leaned a little away from him.

“It’s been a long week.” Anya said, some wariness creeping into his voice, “Do you think you might get to it?”

“Of course, pardon the intrusion.” The intruder smiled at his own bad humor, then reached up and tugged something on a cord from under his vest. 

“Years ago, your sister actually asked me a favor.” He commented, “I’d mostly forgotten it.”

Anastas gave him side-eye. “ _Did_ she.” Maybe he could trip the guy first. Ah- how would he do that, though? Could he really just shove him and run?

“Yeah. I didn’t think of it - but I kept the effect.” The intruder held up the cord to show a rusted key dangling off it. “She said, ‘if something happens to me, take care of Vera and Anastas.’”

Anastas eyed the key. It did not look like it would fit the lock of their house, or the trunk in the attic, or even his sister’s bedroom door. “I don’t… you’ve known her that long?”

“Sure.” The intruder reached up to shrug off the necklace entirely. “What made it weird was-… well, at the time she was injured, so I thought maybe she was delirious.”

Anastas flinched, and the intruder hastened on, “I figured she forgot too. But uhh, three months ago or so. She gave me this.” He gestured with the key. “Around when she was asking all those questions about Mensis.”

Anastas thought of the book he was carrying and nodded. That made sense, he supposed. Except that the key was altogether unfamiliar to him, but he saw no reason to tell the man so.

“And then I had to work,” The intruder continued, “And I didn’t think about it until you told me she’s been missing, and it’s just been sticking, I don’t know. But she gave me this, and some coordinates. You, uh, you know how to read a map?”

Anastas blinked. “I…” He had never left the Cathedral Ward.

The intruder paused. “That could be problematic. Perhaps I should-”

“Don’t you dare tell me you know something and then not give me everything.” Anastas hissed, narrowing his eyes. 

The intruder startled, looked at him, and burst into laughter.

Anastas’s cheeks flamed. He glared through it, willing himself to look scarier and less like - whatever had the man laughing so hard. 

“Oh… Very well, I will give them to you.” The intruder wiped his eyes. “But I’m not sure how much use they’ll be, if you cannot read a map.”

“I’ll learn.” Anastas set his jaw. “It can’t be that hard.”

“And of course, it’s dangerous outside the city.” The man continued, slanting him an amiable look that made Anya want to snap his teeth. “I’d go myself, but I’m still- ah… hunting.”

Anastas twitched and forced down the urge. People didn’t like it when you acted like a feral animal in public, he reminded himself. “You said you weren’t here on business earlier.”

The guy shrugged. “I lied. The Church isn’t my biggest fan, and Ascelin is a lot of things, but _disloyal_ isn’t one of them.” He paused, expression going far-off. “At least, not from what I’ve seen of him. It's a little hard to verify… You should probably be careful.”

“It might surprise you to learn you’re not the first person to warn me about him.” Anastas muttered. “This week, even. But he’s the only one who’s been willing to tell me anything.” And if they wanted him to avoid his only source of information, they needed to offer up a more compelling reason than a nervous look and some vague warnings.

“Relying on a Choir member for information…” The intruder stretched his arms overhead. “My, you _are_ in dire straits… I wonder what I could do.”

Anastas gave him a sour look. “Coordinates…?” He would not ask this person about the Choir, he decided. He wanted to think well of it, but he had some troubling pieces of information to reconcile when he was somewhere safe. But here- no. He wasn’t going to indulge this man by worrying about it where he could see. 

If he actually wanted Anastas to stay away from the Choir or its members, he’d offer some concrete reasons, instead of teasing remarks.

“Ah, I suppose I did promise those.” The intruder reached for the long pistol on his hip, to Anastas’s alarm. 

“What are you doing?” Anastas asked, a half second from bolting.

The intruder paid him no mind and unbuckled the holster entirely to slide off his belt. He pushed the leather into Anastas’s hand, and while Anastas stared at him and then the gun in disbelief - it was heavy! - the intruder reached into his coat to search for something. 

“Did your sister ever teach you how to shoot?” He asked, going through the pockets and looking annoyed at whatever he found or- wasn’t finding. “Wait, never mind, your sister barely knows how to shoot or she wouldn't need that fucking cannon.”

“I… know not to point the end at myself?” Anastas narrowed his eyes. “Or anyone else? You can’t mean for me to shoot people.” He gave the man a look for disparaging Vasilissa, although she did indeed use a gun that did not require - ah, much in the way of _accuracy_.

“ _People._ Of course not.” The man smiled. “But maybe beasts, if you’re really bent on- ah _ha._ ” He pulled out a little black book with a cry of victory. 

Anastas balked and took several steps back this time. “What is that no you need to put that back I don’t want to see-”

“Whatever you’re thinking,” The intruder interrupted, looking somewhere between embarrassed and amused, “No.”

Anastas stared at the book mistrustfully. The intruder sort of giggled and flipped through it, then found a page at the back that he tore out and handed to Anastas. 

_52.1 N, 3.8W_

It was, at least, in his sister’s handwriting. Anastas ran his fingers over the worn piece of paper. “… have you been to it?”

(Would he run into the woods at the word of a stranger? … well, he’d broken the rule about talking to strangers for the promise of information about Vasilissa, and he was a fair bit more desperate now than then. If it meant finding the last member of his family… That wasn’t even a question, was it.)

The intruder blew out a long stream of air. “No, she made me swear I wouldn’t go unless something happened to her. And I’m not ready to say that anything has, yet.” He slanted Anastas a meaningful look. “But you are her precious brother, you know. The math is a little different for you.”

Anastas clutched the paper and nodded slowly. “Thank you,” He said, trying to decide if there was a way he could verify any of it. “Please, um, take this back.” He held up the gun and holster.

The intruder sidestepped to avoid it. “I think not. You can return it when you find Vasilissa and drag her home.” He said, nodding to the pistol. “Until then, Evelyn can watch over you.”

Anastas looked around out of reflex, but, no. They were the only ones on this stretch. A thought nagged at him. “… Did you name your gun?”

“ _I_ didn’t name the gun,” The intruder demurred. “Anyway, take care of her and she’ll take care of you.”

“I don’t know how to take care of a gun.” Anastas pointed out, “I wasn’t even allowed to touch my sister’s guns.”

“Your sister’s cannon, you mean.”

“That either.” Anastas tried to push the gun back, again. “I don’t know you. There’s no way I could take this, it looks like a family heirloom or something.”

The intruder shrugged. “Then leave it. But I really think you should have something, especially if you’re going to keep running around with Hunters.”

Anastas paused, shoulders rounding down. “… would this even give a Beast pause?” He asked, looking at the pistol. Maybe, if it could…

The intruder went still and examined him, and a slow smile curled up his mouth and made his eyes narrow. “Sure. If you know how to make Quicksilver bullets.” He opened a bag on his hip and drew out five bullets to hold out in his open hand. “Want to know how to make them?”

Anastas bit his tongue, gaze flickering between the casings and the easy smile of his company. He thought of the monster burning in the Lower Ward, of the bloodstains in his house, of hiding in a pile of trash and praying to stay alive. He thought of Ascelin, who was sometimes kind but mostly cold, and of his sister telling him how to sink a knife through someone’s ribs. 

He said, “Show me.” Before he could second guess himself, and watched the intruder smile wider. 

The man brought his other hand up, loosely clutching a knife. “Let’s step aside a moment.”

Anastas swallowed. This was a horrible idea. “… alright.”

#

A few hours later, he felt well enough to stand up. He staggered toward the mouth of the alley and leaned heavy on the brick. The book in his cloak, the weight of the bullet pouch on his hip, and the holster with Evelyn inside, seemed to him like lodestones.

“You okay?” The intruder leaned down to nudge Anastas.

“I’m fine.” Anya muttered, then, “Don’t touch me, I’m going to vomit. Your hands are too warm.”

“My hands are warm?” The man sounded bewildered. “Maybe I bled you too much…”

Anastas shuddered and sighed, shying away and patting himself down with both hands. He had one dose left, if he could only find- there.

The intruder stopped talking when Anastas took the syringe out and rolled up his sleeve.

“Ah. Anastas.” The intruder started. Anastas grunted at him and tightened his sleeve garter enough to fake a tourniquet, then looked for the vein.

“Are you seriously- _oh my god Anastas we are in an alley.”_

“Yes, I did notice that. Thank you.” Anastas muttered, watching the plunger drop. He sighed in relief and shut his eyes. “What did you expect me to do?”

“Not that!” The intruder squeaked. “You are far too young to-”

Anastas turned his eyes toward the man and stared until he went silent. He put the cap back on the syringe, and slid it back into the box he carried. He needed to get more. “Was there anything else?” He asked, attempting politeness and coming out flat. “I really ought to go, but… Thank you for your help. I’ll be sure to tell Vasilissa you were looking for her, when I find her.”

 _When_ , not _if_ , he repeated to himself.

“Sure.” The intruder said, staring at Anastas's arm with discomfort creasing his features. “Look. Just- be careful. I can’t imagine what she would do if something happened to you.”

Anastas reflected a moment on someone handing him a gun and then asking him to be careful. “As much as I can be for the circumstances.” He said, then glanced down the alley and sighed. He still needed to find that laundry service…

The intruder hesitated, looking between the street and Anastas, then shook his head. “I can spare another few minutes.” He decided, more to himself. “Where were you trying to go?”

Anastas eyed him. Maybe it was a little late to ask, but, “Why are you helping me so much?”

The intruder paused and examined him. “Because you’re a little older than my daughter,” He said eventually, “And if she were lost, I’d want someone to help her.”

Anastas twitched. “You have a daughter my age? How old are you?”

“I’m… twenty-eight.” The intruder wobbled his hand.

Anastas stared at him, and the man added, “I was fifteen when I had her.”

Unbelievable.

“I am going to leave now.” Anastas said, slowly. “Please have a nice life.” He tried to imagine having a one-year-old and shuddered, walking away from the alley as fast as he could. He was pretty sure the guy still stalked him a while, but it was the principle of the thing by then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I maintain that Hunters as a group are poorly socialized and Ludwig is like THE weird exception, and I won't be convinced otherwise by the Top-Hat Hunter Set or the Threaded Cane flavor text. 
> 
> Also, I've gotten MissMonie (who has been kindly beta'ing this despite only having played Bloodborne at my house for about 2 hours total) attached to Ludwig, which feels like an accomplishment. Although it means if I do anything mean to him she will DEFINITELY kill me...
> 
> Might jump back and do a minor edit on an earlier chapter at some point since I only decided how Ascelin wears his hair, hmm, 95k into writing this story... ooor I could just upload a one shot with Anya commenting on it, since the conversation would probably get very silly in a hurry.


	9. Interlude: The Errant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little story from the past.  
> Or: Ascelin did not teach himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally the Inoculation Interlude was going to be first, but this ended up making more sense for the storyline. It was also going to be like 3 chapters earlier, but you know, stuff happens.  
> Also after working on this story for effectively a month and a half I finally decided on Ascelin's proper accent, whoops. I may jump back and do some edits to dialogue to foreshadow that more, as well as to fix it so the character descriptions aren't SO minimal (I... hate stories that do paragraphs to describe an outfit, and I ran too far in the other direction in my attempt to avoid the same.)
> 
> Some more rambling notes about the accents and setting at bottom.
> 
> A big thank you to MissMonie, who had to read this chapter twice because I rewrote almost all of Ascelin's dialogue, and to Myoutakara, who speaks a tiny amount of French and had to sit through my abhorrent accent, and to cloudycats for some corrections and fun observations of the last chapter.

He hit the ground and sprawled.

Pain lit up his left wrist and the heels of his palms, and he was pretty sure he’d be leaving bloodstains behind him on the concrete.

Above him, the huntress fused her twin daggers back into a short sword and gave it a few swipes, but didn’t pursue him. He hated Siderite so much.

“You need to fall properly or you’ll keep getting hurt.” His instructor moved to crouch near his feet.

He considered kicking her, then forced himself not to. The last time had ended in a thrashing, and the times before that too- first from the huntress and then, after she’d gone, from the sisters. The last five or so times he’d done it, the pain had been hard to walk and do chores through, and the huntress would leave for longer. 

He made himself sit up. After a moment, he even forced his hands off the ground to be examined. The huntress took hold of his wrists, not gripping too tight or touching the scrapes, and examined his wounds. Then she prodded at the tendons and bones, and it took everything in him not to lash out from the pain that raced up his arm. “ _Fuck!_ ”

“You’ve sprained it.” The huntress said, not acknowledging his language. “You’re down for today. Go to the sisters.”

He jerked in her grip, sending another shot of agony through him. “What! Quoi faire?! Jus’ gimme some blood and I can go again!”

“For this?” The huntress shook her head. “You’re young and healthy. It’s a trifling thing - go easy and your body can heal itself.”

“Blood is fastest,” He insisted, staring up at her in growing frustration.

The huntress blinked at him, languid as a feral cat. “With that attitude, you’ll be an addict before you’re twenty.” Then she bent down, and patted his cheek in a parody of sympathy.

He raised his chin to glare at her. 

The woman sighed. “Please let it heal, Ascelin. For me.”

He didn’t understand why she said things like that. Some reminder that he owed her? He thought that debt repaid, with how many times she’d knocked him to the ground. 

(“ _You can have love or sympathy.”_ How many times had she said that to him? Would he hear it again today? The poor joke that he would get either frayed his nerves. The last people who would love him were gone. What he had now was his future to look forward for, and his Church to love, and this teacher, Prospector Vorona, to learn from.)

Ascelin stared at the huntress and set his jaw in challenge, and she sighed and put a hand on his left shoulder.

“I’m not coming back to train you for at least a week, you understand? So just _let it heal._ ”

His fists clenched, and he grit his teeth at the pain that wrought. A week without training was a week where he would, in all likelihood, be sitting in solitary for misbehavior. He needed to move, and he knew that, but the Sisters disagreed. According to them, his disruptions were the result of a restless mind that wanted _peaceful meditation_. Which of course he could do for hours, undisturbed, in the Understairs.

“I'm going to give my report to your guardian,” The huntress gentled her voice, like she was speaking to a child. “You should go see the sisters, Ascelin. They can clean your hands and bandage them. Perhaps give you something for the pain.”

The huntress was the only one who treated him like this. He would have avoided her entirely, but that she was also the only person he’d seen fight with daggers, and he wanted to learn how. Everyone else seemed fixated on the threaded cane, or the new sword modelled after Ludwig’s fantastical blade.

Ascelin did not want to model himself after a gentleman or a hero. What he wanted was knowledge, and the ability to move as fast and as gracefully as Hunter Vorona did.

“Please,” He called, taking a different tactic. He saw the huntress stop; he rarely made requests instead of demands. It left him unpopular with the sisters, but something in the attitude seemed to humor Vorona most days. (Or- he had to assume it had, since when he’d called 'teach me to fight’ at her, she had tilted her head at him and accepted. … eventually.) 

Keeping Vorona interested was the easiest way to get anything from her, though. So sometimes, instead of being a little nightmare, Ascelin would make himself swallow his pride and ask for things nicely.

The huntress turned back to regard him and tipped her head, a mute offering to hear out his appeal.

Ascelin pushed himself to his feet, winced, stretched out his injured wrist the best that he could. “Teach something else?” He widened his eyes, the way that seemed to give the younger children some success in making requests. “I jus’ wanta learn.”

The huntress stared so long that he prepared another argument, something about how he’d be out of the orphanage’s care soon and would need to be able to fight to earn his way.

But before he could open his mouth, Vorona inclined her head to him and beckoned him forward. “Fine.”

“… fine?” Ascelin echoed, uncertain. It was that easy?

The huntress nodded and brushed her hands on her trousers. “Yes. I would show you something.”

#

Ascelin did not recall if he’d ever left the Orphanage to explore the city. He supposed he must have, once - he hadn't always been an orphan, and he remembered most of his life _Before_ \- but he had been very young, and most of his memories were that the Cathedral Ward was too big and too loud and there were too many people crowding around him.

Vorona was not actually supposed to take him from the orphanage - ever. At least, not without permission from the Conductor. But she did not seem interested in stopping to ask, and Ascelin was not going to interrupt her to make the suggestion. It was more than likely the Conductor would veto their outing, and Ascelin wanted so very badly to be _out_.

Vorona led him inside and upstairs, to a window that Ascelin had always seen kept shut before. It was the same today, a great portal that teased him with the beyond without allowing him to reach out and touch it.

Vorona took out a dagger, and teased the tip into the lock. Ascelin watched It turn and click.

Vorona turned yellow eyes on him and smiled, like she knew something he didn't, then withdrew the blade and snapped the lock back into place.

She reversed the weapon so she was holding it out by the blade, and offered the grip to Ascelin. “Come on. Let’s see you have a go.”

Ascelin stared back at her. He took the knife before she could rethink it and set to trying to do what she’d done.

Vorona’s shoulders shook on a soundless laugh. Then she reached out to stay his hand, to his annoyance, and guided him through the process, which mollified him. 

It took a few minutes for him to do what she’d done in a heartbeat, but he thought he could probably get the time down with practice.

When the window clicked unlocked from his own attempt, Ascelin felt as if he’d discovered a thief’s skeleton key, and he could see the world falling open ahead of him.

The huntress opened the window only far enough for her to slide out. Then she crept across the roof with more grace than Ascelin possessed, and hopped off of it entirely, landing out of sight. Ascelin scrambled on her heels, slipped on a loose tile, and stumbled off the edge after.

Vorona was waiting, and caught him to set on his feet. Mortified, he stared at her a moment and then decided to never speak of it to anyone. Ever.

“Come on, fledgling.” The huntress nudged him with an outside amount of good humour, probably because watching him fall was amusing for her. “They will notice you're gone eventually.”

Maybe at bed check, but honestly, he doubted a moment before. Ascelin nodded anyway and followed her with a little more caution. He didn’t want to fall twice - being caught again by someone so despised might _actually_ kill him.

They went through half the Upper Cathedral Ward by walking the rooftops. Ascelin understood what birds felt, with the wind whipping against and around him. He stopped to look at the Clocktower and forget to breathe at the beauty of it from the distance, outlined by the afternoon sunlight. The bustle of the city below was drowned by the ringing in his ears as he looked on that tower. 

“Dizzying, isn’t it.” Vorona said, somewhere near his shoulder. Probably waiting for him to fall again. Well, he wouldn’t.

Ascelin pushed some of his loose hair from his face, then tugged the ribbon from his braid so he could twist his hair up into a bun instead. His eyes stayed focused on the clock tower. There was something about it…

The sunlight passed through the glass a little differently than it should have. It made the air waver, like a mirage in the height of summer, or oil in a street puddle. It did not look entirely real, though - Ascelin had touched the rough, porous stone of the brickwork of the tower many times. He was beyond certain of its reality. 

“It is an interesting thing,” Vorona mused, “Maybe someday we’ll know why it shimmers so. … but that isn’t what I mean to show you today. Come on.” She nudged his shoulder, and Ascelin - wanted to stay, and look.

He reminded himself that he did not know the area. If he annoyed the huntress, she might leave and he would have to find his own way back - and to whatever she meant to show him, as well.

Vorona walked away - swaggered, really, with the kind of confidence the nuns had been trying to beat out of Ascelin for a decade. But Vorona wasn’t like him - she had the skill and violence to back her walk. 

Ascelin just had-

… well. Did it matter? What he had would be enough to claw his way up to her level. He had no other choice.

She led him to a hill made of buildings and started to pick her way down, the way he’d seen goats navigate the mountainside. He followed, less certain of his footing. “Say- how often do ya do dis?” He called, after he’d almost slipped and fallen to his death for the third time. “Walk on the roof, instea’ of te road?”

“Oh, most of the time.” Vorona crouched and then gripped the roof edge to swing herself down to a new perch. The Cathedral Ward, ever short for space, had a tendency to build skyward. The flow of immigrants since the discovery of Blood Ministration had only contributed to this, and the city stuck houses on churches on mausoleums all with abandon. Somewhere generations under the cobbles were the remnants of the original city, or, so the story went.

Ascelin imagined that he was walking across a tower of precariously balanced river rocks and stifled a smile. Yes, that would be just like the city he knew. 

Vorona helped him down to the roof below, to his embarrassment, and gestured towards-

“Ya brought me to see a graveyard?” Ascelin was a little disappointed. It was a nice enough park, he supposed, but… Yharnum was _full_ of Graveyards, and some of the most elaborate were scattered around the Ward where he lived. This couldn’t hold a candle to it… though, it looked to be one of the oldest, probably predating the Upper Ward’s by centuries, maybe even eons.

“Not quite, dearheart.” Vorona’s lips twitched. She leapt over the fence with a grace he sorely lacked, then spun to watch him and wait.

Ascelin took a breath and leapt. 

He cleared the black metal pikes and hit the ground too hard, even with the roll he tucked into. His limbs screamed at him, and he was pretty sure he was bleeding. His wrist, already sprained, was… not happy. He got to his feet anyway, and the huntress cocked her head and regarded him a moment with a little smile curling her mouth before turning away. Ascelin did not know what to make of the smile - only that it was unlike the fake ones the sisters gave him, or the oily ones some less-scrupulous adults tried to ply children with. He stared after her and tried to gauge it without success.

She walked up the stone steps winding through the forest of tombstones with a silent expectation that he would follow. Ascelin hurried after her. 

At the top of the park was a mausoleum which was curiously unornamented by the current standard - when he got closer to it, he realized it was due to age. The crumbling relic looked as if it had stood there since at least the medieval period. Maybe even the Dark Age. Its door pointed toward the northwest. There were lanterns flanking the entrance, unlit in daytime. The one on the left had a thin, curious opening below the metal branch its light hung from. It looked a little like a keyhole, though placed well away from the door. 

The tomb door itself was embossed with a relief of a psychopomp: a man with a grinning skeletal face and a scythe in his hands, and a lantern on his belt. He stood taller than Ascelin, but Ascelin could still touch the face if he reached. There was something subtly off in the shape of the skull which seemed repellent and fascinating to him at once, though he could not speak to what about it or why. 

“… ya brought me to look at skeletons.” Ascelin corrected, reaching up to brush his fingers to the relief’s cheek. The psychopomp embossed on the stone stared out at nothing. “Gardes don. He’s not a happy sort, izze?”

Vorona was standing to the side, examining the wall. She crouched to grasp a loose brick and pulled it out. Ascelin watched her reach into the recess and retrieve a key. 

The metal had a cloudy green patina, and time had faded the emblem on its base until it was little more than the suggestion of shapes. 

Vorona reached overhead and used it in the keyhole. Something out of sight rumbled, and the door eased open inch by aching inch to reveal the tomb.

Even facing the sun as it did, the building seemed to resist being ripped of its shadows. Vorona lit a little lamp to hang on her belt, without Ascelin seeing any sign of flint or tinderbox. She stepped into the tomb and turned back to look at him, eyes gleaming in the dark like shining coins, expecting him to follow her into the blackness. 

Ascelin stepped past the threshold of the tomb. 

#

“Before us there were others.” Vorona told him, pressing a statue in the middle of the tomb until it was nearly touching the casket plinth. Ascelin felt the floor shake, this time, and took several steps back. 

The stones before the plinth seemed to fall away, then settled into a staircase and became still again. Ascelin stared at them.

“Before us- before the Choir?” He asked, looking up at her.

She was walking around the gap to him on soundless feet. A smile twitched on her mouth, thin and knife sharp. “Before Yharnum was itself.” She said, “There were others who thought to do as we do. They grasped for the heavens, climbed for them. … eventually, they learned to build towers.” She stopped at the peak of the stairs, tilted her head again. Asked him, “Do you want to see what happened to them?” Her voice implied that it had not been a happy ending, that he might not like what he heard. As if that were a reason for shutting his ears to it.

Ascelin hated her for asking, the same way he hated her attempted gentleness, and her imitations of patience.

“I asked ya to teach me.” He reminded, his voice seeming too loud even to him in the gloom. He was told to take up less space so often in his life - but this was the first time he felt like the room itself was the one scolding him. Something about the place made him more superstitious than he might have been otherwise; he dropped his voice. “I followed. Whatever it is - don’t ask me again. Yes. I wanta see.”

The huntress huffed quietly, turned to look down the stairs.

“Let me go first.” She said, “In case there is something still alive.” She descended the stairs.

Feeling more and more like he’d fallen in with Charon without his notice, Ascelin shadowed her steps.

#

In the darkness below there were many somethings moving. Ascelin had never imagined before how many living, breathing things might lurk below a tomb.

There were the sort he would expect, of course. Worms and fungus and that curious breathing moss that was sometimes harvested in the forest. But the corpses - he had really expected more of those to be inanimate. Maybe even all of them? He wondered if this was why the sight of graves and coffins bothered people, that they’d known about this and he hadn’t. 

Vorona had kept watching him for something, but what she expected to find was beyond him. Ascelin touched the bricks and the tomb mould and marvelled that the place they were walking through had once been alive, the same as the city above it.

Etched in hard, even cuts above a doorway was a script he didn’t understand. He paused to examine it anyway. “… Hunter Vorona.” He called. She grunted and ripped her knife out of something he couldn't see for the dark.

“Grant me a moment.” She called with her breathing laboured. There was a sharp noise and a thud and a scream.

“Sure, sure. I ain’t goin anywhere.” Ascelin agreed, touching the stone cuts. The edges were still a little sharp, but he thought that was more to do with good conditions than fresh markings.

Vorona emerged from the darkness a few seconds later, blood-splattered and wiping her knives on the edge of her coat. Her eyes, flashing the gold of a cat’s in the torchlight, flickered to the text he was examining.

“Ah. This?” She gestured to it, and he nodded.

“They never taught dis script.”

“You don’t know the language, either. This is from antiquity.” Vorona took a moment longer staring at it, then she said, “Read literally it would be ‘the surface of the lake reflects the contents of the belly’… More succinctly, it might be put ‘ _As above, so below_.’ Poetry doesn’t much suit the modern language.”

Ascelin tilted his head. “The sisters have us read poetry all the time.” He said, examining her askance. Vorona snorted with laughter.

“You can put all the perfume you want on a corpse, but it doesn’t make it smell any better.”

Ascelin considered that. Was their language the corpse? He didn’t really enjoy being corrected for saying things ‘unbeautifully’ because he sounded like where he came from.

Vorona watched him and rubbed her thumb at her cheek. “Whenever you’re ready to walk.” She reminded him. “Unless you're ready to leave…?”

Ascelin bounced and forget about the issue of language immediately. “I wanta see more.” He assured, and watched her eyes flicker and her lips thin like she didn't really want to show him.

“Tell me if your head begins to ache.”

What a strange request. If his head hurting meant they’d leave, he’d just keep quiet. “Yeah, yeah. I will, promise.” 

They went deeper. He watched Vorona strike down an old woman clutching a bell and blade with the same callous disregard she had shown to the desiccated bodies prior. 

“Come have a look,” Vorona called to him, the same as she did after every other kill she’d made in the light, and Ascelin went and looked.

The old woman had a gaunt face, subtly wrong to his eye, too long and too thin. All around she was too long and too thin, really.

“Look at the teeth,” the huntress encouraged, wiping off blackish, syrupy blood with the edge of her cape.

Ascelin raised his hand and pressed aside the corpse’s lip with his thumb. He stared at woman’s mouth. An ugly, bloated tongue, subtly discoloured, and-

“She got two sets of eyeteeth,” He reported, “Izzat wha ya brought me ta see?”

“In part.” Vorona offered her hand to him. Ascelin didn’t take it, and pushed himself to his feet while watching her.

The rejection was a rudeness the sisters would not tolerate, if they had condescended to aid him.

Vorona shrugged, unoffended, and turned away. “If you have it.” She said, growing disinterested without - what? Something to kill? And she walked deeper still into the labyrinth. Ascelin wasn’t sure if it ever ended, or whether they could find a way out again. He wondered what one could eat underground, besides the corpses.

Since they had come inside, Vorona had taken on the mood Ascelin found most tolerable - cold and blunt, demanding. It was nice, because he knew what she wanted of him and did not have unseen margins for failure. Unfortunately, she was less likely to answer him in this state than in any other… But at least it stripped away her pretexts of kindness and charity. Vorona was doing this to make some point to him, no more or less.

There were more bodies. Not originally, but Vorona was very good at changing things from alive to dead.

Ascelin watched her from the doorways to tombs that became arenas, then back to burial sites. He could almost move like that, sometimes, when had had his training blades in his hands and the world slowed down and everything seemed to click. He wanted to be better. He wanted-

In the biggest room there was a hulking grey monster, with wet slippery flesh and hollows for eyes. It had rags for clothes, and wielded an iron club and a heavy spiked lantern. When Vorona stepped into its space it growled and took a few steps, then dashed at her. Ascelin leaned forward in the doorway. He hadn’t realized something so bulky could move like that.

Vorona ducked under the swing of its club and rolled behind it, then struck out at it with her sword with such force that it staggered to its knees and was reduced to something almost human.

Vorona did not let it get back up. She lunged and forced her hand inside of its bloated body to grasp something and _rip it out_ in a spray of blood so potent Ascelin could smell it from the door. His bones ached. He wanted-

The smell roiled his stomach, so he pressed a hand over his nose to breathe, and stared. The blood that spurted out of the monster was thick and almost so dark it was black. It stained Vorona’s arm, her face, and when she squeezed whatever she’d ripped out of it, things only got messier. Visceral blood painted streaks on the floor, and the corpse slumped to its knees then dropped facedown and didn't get up again. The light it had held clattered to the floor and the blue flame inside extinguished.

Only the brightness of the huntress’s eyes, and the dim glow of her lantern, remained in the half dark. 

\- he wanted to be a hunter. 

“Clear.” Vorona called, when she could speak without sounding breathless. Ascelin knew what she was doing - he’d seen her do it often before - but for the first time he thought he saw the point in it. _Presentation_. 

Ascelin went into the room to look around, examining the cut stone and the worn floors and the gelatinous flesh of the unfortunate guard. There was a lever at the back, illuminated by a blue lantern hanging from a statue of a woman. 

“We goin deeper?” He asked, eyeing it in interest. 

“Not yet.” Vorona walked to the middle of the chamber, where two staircases flanked a heavy, ancient-looking chest. There was a balcony above it that overlooked where they stood. 

There was a lock, but the chest was fetid and rotting. Vorona brought her boot down on the lock and the surrounding wood splintered and shattered. She waved Ascelin closer. 

Inside the chest was— his mouth went dry. “Izzat…”

He knew what it was. But he didn’t understand why he was staring at a Blade of Mercy, cradled in the remnants of the chest. 

“It’s always amazed me,” Vorona said, “What people will do out of desperation, and for power.” She crouched on the stone and looked at the prize, then turned her catlike gaze on him. “Well? Go on and take it.”

Ascelin’s hands trembled. “Dis a trick?” He asked, and hated his voice for sounding - what? Hopeful? Young?… not the way he wanted to sound, he decided. Not in control. The 

Vorona continued to watch him. “Take it,” She repeated, “I brought you here so you could have this. If you’ve decided you don’t want it, then turn away from the chest, and I will take you home.” There was a finality to her words that Ascelin could not entirely decipher, but it fortified him. _She thinks I'll run_.

Ascelin’s wrist twinged. He looked at the sword in the chest's bottom, two blades fused by magnetic metal and cleverly fitted pieces. “Ya know da sisters won’t allow it.” He brushed his fingers over the edge. It drew blood, and he watched the droplets gather at the tip of his finger and drip into the box to stain the ancient wood. “‘s dangerous. I could hurt someone wit dese.”

“I’m sure you know how to keep secrets.” The huntress watched him. “And you won’t be a child forever. Do you want the Blade or not?”

“Whatsit gonna cost me?” Ascelin asked, feeling a weight in his chest, and a tightness in his throat like something was trying to crawl up and out of it. He wanted it, of course he wanted it. But he did not know if he could afford the price.

“You’ll use it.” Vorona told him. “I won’t leave you with a weapon I’m uncertain you can wield.”

 _Not yet,_ she’d said, about descending. He shut his eyes and breathed. 

“I ain’t afraid.” He told Vorona, and closed his hand around the sword grip. 

He could hear her stand up. “I know you aren’t, Ascelin. That’s why I’m here to watch over you.”

#

  
  
  


It seemed a little strange to say that someone who was unafraid needed watching over, but…

It turned out that being fearless on a hunt was more of an impediment than a benefit. It meant Ascelin had someone with him to pull him out of fights he couldn’t win yet, and clean up his mistakes. 

He gritted his teeth against the fury and vowed to himself to do better, to not be so cocky, to misstep less. 

Vorona flicked blood from her daggers and nodded to herself, looking at the corpse of their enemy with satisfaction. It was the biggest thing he’d ever seen. And with Vorona’s help — mostly Vorona harassing it enough to keep it from _eating_ him — he’d slaughtered it. 

He wasn’t a proper hunter yet. But he could feel his blood singing in his veins, even as exhaustion left him flagging.

“You’re a bit worse off than I’d hoped.” Vorona pulled him to his feet. Ascelin gagged at the pain that sent through him. 

Vorona adjusted her grip until he was mostly standing, with her arm around his waist to support him, and his arm around her shoulders. If he were less tired, it would mortify him to need the support.

She half-carried him to the back of the area and kicked open the chest there. Ascelin whined at being jarred — he couldn’t help it, it _hurt —_ and looked _._

Inside was a dusty chalice. 

Ascelin stared at it, disappointment welling up in his chest. A cup? What kind of prize was a dirty old cup? “My foot.” He hissed at it, then wondered, “What da hell is dis for?” His head hurt, and he was tired. He didn’t want some dead guy’s cup as a reward for almost dying! 

Vorona chuckled against his temple. “That doesn't look like much,” She allotted, “But that’s a key to another world. Seek the precursors to find your answers. If they will take you, study at Byrgenwerth.” She went silent a moment. “Sheath your blades, fledgling. I am going to take you home.”

Ascelin shut his eyes against the promised headache.

He was sure he couldn’t see the world the same after what he’d witnessed in the labyrinth. Beasts unlike anything that walked Yharnum, and blood that smelled like the ocean, hidden in sepulcher, running through rivers cut deep below the ground.

He wondered if he could convince Vorona to take him on another hunt. The Conductor wouldn’t allow it, surely, but he was sure he could get the window open by himself this time. Vorona had never taken back her knife. 

#

When he came back to himself, he realized he was not walking but being ferried. The sun was down, and Yharnum was - not quiet, never quiet. But it was peaceful, or as much as it could be with the weeping of so many people.

The scourge had taken so much.

… he realized that he shouldn’t be above ground at all. He’d been in a tomb, with-

With the person who was carrying him on their back. He struggled a little against her on principle. “Vorona.” He hissed, “I’m an adult. I can walk.”

“You’re fourteen.” Vorona said, in the same disinterested way she would deny him at lessons. “And you almost broke your skull open _walking_ out of the tomb. I would rather not repeat it.”

Ascelin bristled at her, but his limbs felt like they were made of lead. If she really wanted to carry him on her back, who was he to stop her. He settled his head back down, and shut his eyes. 

… it was sort of nice, being touched by another person, without it being for punishment or obligation. Not that he would ever tell her so. He could keep that secret, the same as the Blade of Mercy she had granted him, and this sepulchral batize. 

Ascelin shut his eyes. “Can ya get up the roofs like dis.” He murmured, trying to will enough energy to care that he could be caught and punished for running away from the Orphange, even only for the night.

“Don’t worry about it.” Vorona dismissed. “Go back to sleep. Come morning, it’ll be little more than a bad dream.”

“I don’ wanta sleep.” Ascelin argued. “I don’ wanta forget any of dis.”

Vorona sighed. “I was afraid it might be so.” She muttered, but she didn’t sound disappointed.

Ascelin’s jaw tensed. “If ya didn’t wan’ me ta know. Why tell me?”

Vorona never answered him. 

#

He woke up in the orphanage without evidence of injury. A Sister came to punish him for sneaking out - he’d missed the bed check, of course. But before she could really lay into him, an alarm went up, and took her away. 

He waited for her, locked in with the other children. They eyed him nervously. when it became clear they were forgotten, a girl a few years his junior, scooted closer to him. She had dark skin, and hair that frizzed into a cloudy mass no matter what the sisters attempted to contain it. Ascelin was not actually sure he knew her name, because she was new, and because he rarely spoke to the other foundlings. 

“Ascelin,” She called, eyes wide. He struggled to remember what she was called. “Where did you go?”

Ascelin looked at her and didn’t answer. He wanted to know what they knew, and he did not want to give them anything - especially not something that could be bartered to the Sisters for better treatment, at the expense of punishing him. 

“Please.” The girl started, then went quiet at the sound of steps from the hall. They all did. 

Whoever was out there didn’t pause at their door. The children relaxed in increments. 

“Ascelin, _please_. While you were gone - something happened at the Research Hall.” The girl whispered. “And now everyone is acting mad. _Please_. _Where were you?”_

Ascelin’s fingers twitched on his threadbare sheet. He raised his chin to look at her. “I was hunting.” He said. 

He watched her eyes widen. The expression of surprise lingered a moment, then melted into disbelief and disappointment. “You don’t have to lie about it.” She mumbled, and got up to move away from him. No one else approached. 

The sisters stayed away the entire day. It was uncomfortable, missing their meals, but all of them had experienced it as a punishment once or twice. It wasn’t unexpected. 

A few of the older kids kept bread hidden around the room. They weren’t supposed to have it. The kindest of them shared it around. No one offered any to Ascelin, which suited him. He did not want anything he couldn’t pay back in the moment.

Early the next morning was when the door opened again. It was one of the oldest sisters, harried-looking with a rumpled gown and her prayer shawl askew. Hair was sticking out of her habit in messy clumps, and she had blood and ashes on her cheeks, and fingers, and apron.

She looked too tired to be properly strict with them. “Dress in your mourning best.” She told them, then settled her gaze on Ascelin. “You. Troublemaker. With me.”

Well. He’d been waiting for it. Ascelin stood up from the bed slowly, to disguise the stiffness of his limbs, and tried to look haughty and languid rather than aching and exhausted. (No outward evidence didn’t actually mean he felt any better… good to know, he supposed.)

He wasn’t sure what had happened to the blades he’d been left, though he was certain he’d not dreamed their acquisition. He wanted to go looking, but- he couldn’t, with her eyes on him. She’d want to know what he was looking for. And if she found it- 

Well, they were as good as gone, and so was he.

Ascelin kept his eyes trained on the sister and followed her to the Hall of Reflection. 

It was at the back of the church, past where the choir would stand, and behind a wall to keep out the uninitiated there was an elevator. Usually the grate was shut. 

But today it was open and the sister pushed him inside, and Ascelin stumbled onto the pressure plate that activated it. He turned in time to see her disapproving gaze fixed on him, and the metal mesh creaked shut. 

“You can explain yourself.” She said, hatred flashing in her eyes. “Gods have mercy on you.”

Ascelin’s lip curled off his teeth and he stared back until she was out of sight.

At the bottom of the shaft, he stepped out of the elevator into a yawning cavern the likes of which he could not have imagined. Sunlight streamed in from a place high above them, faint and blue, wavering. Ascelin breathed in and was surprised water didn’t rush in and drown him.

A woman in fine white robes stood with her back to him, observing the space with hands laced behind her. Her pale hair was bound up in complicated braids around her skull, and when she turned to face him he saw the scars she’d earned from her work as a scholar and a hunter.

He made himself bow, because he was not afraid, but he’d learned from a lot of pain that he really should pretend to be. “Conductor Xenia.”

“Rise.” She said. It sounded like a gunshot in the silence. His muscles all tensed, and he pushed himself to his feet. 

“Where were you last night?” The conductor turned away from him again, looking at something blurry in the distance. Ascelin could not take his eyes away from her long enough to focus on it - the Conductor had her threaded cane clutched between her hands. It was meant to distinguish her as graceful, and she was - Ascelin had seen her slaughter scourge beasts with flicks of that weapon. He could not separate out its beauty and its potential for destruction, and together they kept him transfixed on it. 

“Where were you?” The Conductor asked, in the voice of someone who knew they would be answered.

Ascelin took a breath into his battered lungs. “I snuck out, Lady Conductor.” He said, and wondered what his chances were at taking an armed Hunter in a fight, barehanded.

Not very high, even if he picked up a stone from the ground. At most he could maybe hope to give her an injury to pay for his demise.

“Why?” Xenia asked.

He tried to feel the fear that she seemed to inspire in others, but all he found in himself was a pit— as yawning and empty as the cavern ahead of them.

“I was wantin some air,” Ascelin lied, feeling the steady beat of his heart against his breast. “So I waited til da sisters weren’t lookin and slipped out.”

Xenia did not move. “When?”

Ascelin’s fingers twitched. “I t'ink after Huntress Vorona stopped da lesson.” He said, and it wasn't hard to slip derision and resentment into his voice. “She was wantin me to visit da infirmary, and I didn’t care ta go. So I pretended I went down to da Sisters, and den I snuck away.” He paused, holding his breath, to see if she'd take it.

Xenia was quiet a long moment. Ascelin considered the stones on the ground, trying to find the largest piece he could still grip with any level of competence.

“Your lessons with Hunter Vorona were a mistake.” Xenia said. Ascelin stiffened and stared at her back with mounting disbelief.

“They will cease.” She said, before he could open his mouth and say something that would result in his messy death at the bottom of the elevator shaft. “And you will study under a Hunter who can be trusted.”

Ascelin’s throat felt dry . “I don' understan,” he started, then swallowed what felt like a stone. “Lady Conductor. My… apologies. What… di- do. _Do_ you mean to say?”

Xenia’s voice had been a gunshot, before; now it rumbled out of her as thunder.

“Huntress Vorona is seditious, and a heretic. We should never have let her in our walls. If she contacts you, you will report to your Sisters immediately.” She turned towards Ascelin, and her face gave the appearance of softening. “In light of the circumstances,” she said, “I suppose your ungodly behavior falls on my head. I will be merciful in correcting it.”

Ascelin’s fingers closed on nothing. “Ya… _You_ are too kind, Lady Conductor.” He bowed his head, to look for escape routes.

He heard the snap of her cane shifting into its trick form. A metal whip.

“Yes,” She agreed, and he saw her feet shift into position, preparing to swing. “I do believe I am. Do not worry, Ascelin. You will survive this.”

“I do not doubt you, Lady Xenia.” Ascelin lied, and scrambled to dodge sideways when the whip came down.

#

He hadn’t realized how much blood was in his body until someone had done him the kindness of drawing it out.

The cavern wavered overhead. The moon had risen, and now more than ever he felt like he was lying at the bottom of a lake. The weight on his chest could have been an ocean.

In the distance he could hear the clipped steps of the Conductor leaving, and the rattle of the elevator grate as it shut.

She did not speak to him before she went.

Something resolved itself in the gloamy air above his fingers, rising from the blood. The shape of an animal, who turned luminous yellow eyes on him, and opened wide its jaws—

Then statues, moving in above him. Little maddening statues, like he’d seen all over Yharnum. They hissed and whispered, and reached out with their hands to touch him. It felt like ice across his body.

He kept waiting for something to happen. Time moved strangely, when most of your blood was outside of you, and your body was trying to fail. He watched the blood-creature approach him. He watched the white statues given life fawn over his body.

_Maybe they'll bury me, if the church won’t grant me a pyre._

He shut his eyes. Ascelin didn’t want to die there. But he had nothing left in him to give anymore. He’d struggled against his fate and they had flayed him for it. Now the best he could hope for was some sister or conductor in the distant future tripping on his skeleton, as far as revenge went.

… infuriating, really. He tried to breathe and coughed up something deep and wet and unfortunately solid.

He twitched his fingers as long as he could, to stay awake. But… By increments, the fogginess of sleep drew him under.

Over the distant rumble of the tides, he could hear someone singing, and a woman's laughter.

“ _My. You’re very stubborn, aren't you.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want it known that MissMonie furiously mocked teen!Ascelin in her chapter notes and I'm in complete agreement with her.
> 
> About the accent:  
> Putting aside that all the Bloodborne accents are some kind of European - Ascelin was originally planned with a Southern USA accent, but the Texas/Dixie mix I give him didn't make sense (a lot of the weird phrases and terms are actually derived from cattle herders, which... aren't part of where he's from in this setting), so after some waffling Cajun was decided as being the best bet. I'm sure there's a 'country' accent in the UK, but also I know nothing of the area, having never left the states :'>
> 
> Following that, I've only been to Louisiana once and have 0 confidence in my depiction of a Cajun accent, any constructive criticism is very very welcome. My beta helped, but she's NEVER been to the state, and she's from Virginia, so we just kind of... cobbled together the best we could with the help of Google and my hazy memories of talking to friends from the area. (Most of them disguise their accents, so it slips out in syntax - which, incidentally, works for Ascelin.) 
> 
> Lastly, some fun notes from the research for this chapter: "amygdale" (ah-mee-dahl) means tonsil in Cajun-French. Probably not too surprising, if you know why the Tonsil Stone is called what it is, but I still didn't expect to see it while browsing a Cajun dictionary. (Thanks to LSU's Department of French studies, because they have a HUGE glossary on the dialect!)  
> Concrete wasn't a popular building material for most of the middle ages in the UK, and only started to catch on in the 1800s - originally for industrial buildings, though homes were built with it around 1850 onward. I learned this because I wanted to know if the Church having a concrete pavilion made sense, and to be honest I'm still not sure :'D


	10. Necessity and Excess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anya catches a break.  
> Also, when you don't use your words, bad stuff happens. Sometimes bad stuff still happens if you use your words, of course, but at least then you can say you tried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Breather chapter. This was important I swear, but we'll take another walk down to the basement soon.  
> ... I'm so tired of looking at this chapter. I'm still not 100% satisfied with it, but c'est la vie. This got rewritten at least twice, and then I threw myself into the chapters after as a breather (for me. Not the characters. The next chapters are not breathers for them at all). 
> 
> Thanks for your patience. I tried to leave translations in the text of the most important stuff. (In some I didn't even try to put it into Russian because my cursing is just not up to par yet).
> 
> Thanks to MissMonie for betaing this, and to MyouTakara for enabling my bad behavior regarding one of the secondary plot lines!
> 
> There's translations for the Russian at the end of the chapter, but you aren't missing vital information if you don't read them.

There was a plain-looking townhouse down one alley, with a sign that caught Anastas’s eye. Painted on it was an iron and a bucket full of suds. Below that was neat calligraphy:

 _NíBrennan_ ’s _Laundry_

Anastas climbed the stoop and took a breath, then raised his hand to knock twice, as firm as he dared.

“Coming!” A woman called, muffled by the wood. “Pardon me just a moment!”

Anastas shifted in place. The door creaked open to a harried woman in a blue dress and a damp linen apron. He looked up - sunburnt, freckled, with wide eyes and round friendly cheeks. The woman from the church laundry, he realized. 

The one who’d gotten blood from his coat. And then- had worried he was afflicted. Her name had been-

“Ms. Bedelia! I’m sorry to intrude,” Anastas realized he wasn’t sure what to say after. What was the script for showing up on someone’s door unannounced after meeting them once? It was unpardonably rude.

“Master Volkov,” Bedelia said, caution bleeding into her voice. She leaned a bit out of the doorway and glanced down the street both ways, then relaxed a bare margin. She grasped his arm and, after a brief hesitation where he could _see_ indecision flash over her face, she drew him inside. 

“Please. Come in and we can speak.” She said, even as she was pulling the door shut behind him. She latched and barred it, and eyed the wood askance. 

Anastas stared at her. “Are you alright?” He asked, shifting and wrapping his arms around himself. It had been cold out - not grabbing a thicker coat had been stupid of him. It wasn’t winter yet, but it was threatening. 

Bedelia glanced back at him and didn’t manage a smile this time. “I didn’t expect a caller from Uptown today.” She said while looking him over. “Least of all you, Master Volkov.” Her brow creased. “Whatever are you doing all the way out here?”

Anastas looked down at his scuffed shoes. “Ah… Ascelin.” He felt incredibly grubby in these clothes. He’d picked them for movement, not house calls. “Please pardon me.”

Bedelia made a soft noise. She put a hand on his back the way his father used to, and pressed him further into the house. “Come and warm yourself up.” She said, apparently deciding something, “And you can tell me about it.”

Anastas’s manners demanded he refuse the offer until he was sure she meant it. But his fingers were responding to him sluggishly, and it was such a struggle just to pick up his feet instead of dragging them after her.

Air so hot it shocked him billowed out of the kitchen doorway, and Anastasia balked at its first touch. There was a fireplace blazing against one wall with a pot of soup hung in it, and another fire in the oven. On the hob several irons were arranged to heat. 

The smell of food hit him next, and his mouth watered. He hadn’t eaten since- … maybe it was better not to think about that… He hadn’t been taking very good care of himself as of late.

Two heavy coppers and a metal bucket were on the floor against the back wall, along with a stool and a washing bat, a manger and a board, and various bottles and containers.

There was a little carved wood table near the kitchen doorway that Bedelia pressed him to sit at. The chairs were carved also, and they had cushions made of brightly dyed fabric.

To his mortification, his stomach grumbled. Anastas’s cheeks flushed. "I’m so sorry—”.

Bedelia turned away from him and walked off before he could continue. Anastas stared after her, and wondered if he should perhaps just curl up under the table out of sight. It wouldn’t be very proper, but he might feel better.

Bedelia took a bowl down from a cabinet and began ladling soup from the firepot. 

She set the bowl and spoon in front of him. Anastas blinked at it, and then at her, brows furrowing. His stomach grumbled again. He wasn’t sure what to make of it, so he just - stayed still. 

“Eat.” Bedelia advised. “If you aren’t a hunter, you still need meals. So eat. Then we can speak about what you’ve gotten yourself into.” The certainty of her words made him feel very small, but also a little relieved. Here was someone who might be able to help him, who was _willing_ to help him. 

(… Ascelin had to know that about her, that she did not regard him as harmless. Why would he send Anastas to someone like that?)

Anastas inclined his head, with his cheeks feeling hot. “Thank you. I’m so, so sorry for the trouble.”

Bedelia walked across the kitchen to sit on a stool, and plunged a linen gown into one of the steaming copper washtubs. “Your sister has always been kind to me.” She said, with the grim certainty of a woman giving her word. “I’ll pay that forward, if I can.” Her eyes flickered to him, and she pushed some hair from her face with an impatient hand. “But I told you, we can discuss it after you eat. You’re shaking.”

Was he? Anastas inclined his head. “Sorry…” He picked up his spoon, struggling to keep it steady, and ate in slow bites. Broth splashed the table despite his best efforts, and burnt his fingers, but Bedelia did not say anything. His cheeks burned anyway.

The stew was better than anything he’d had in years: root vegetables roughly chopped and simmered in glittering thick stock, though perhaps that was hunger speaking. Anastas ate all of it, and — slanting an apologetic glance at his host — tipped the bowl to drink the last of the broth.

Bedelia pretended not to see him, which made him feel a little better. He cleaned his mouth with a handkerchief and pretended he hadn’t reverted to childhood. 

“Thank you for the meal. It was very good.” He shifted in his seat. “Would you- I know I’ve already been a good deal of trouble, and I am so sorry. But could I impose on your hospitality just a bit more?”

Bedelia glanced up at him, lips pressed thin. “I suppose you really ought to,” She said, “Since you didn’t heed my warning.”

Anastas winced. “… I was so worried. And he was the only one who was telling me anything- and- I suppose it doesn’t matter.” He slumped in the seat, brought his hands up to cover his face like that would help against the mix of shame and anxiety. “I’ve made a mess of things.”

“That’s easy enough to do when no one tells you what’s going on.” Bedelia allotted; she sounded as if she was speaking from experience. “Why don’t you start at the beginning, master Volkov, and we’ll see what we can make of things?”

Anastas relaxed a little, and told her about when Vasilissa left, and everything that had come after.

#

Bedelia made him eat a second bowl, and a third, before she stopped eyeing him like he was going to die. Anastas tried not to think about how he must have looked for her to be worried, and thanked her maybe more than she was comfortable with (just to judge by the frown she fixed on him after the third). Watching her work without any contribution from him made Anastas uncomfortable, so he minded what she was doing, and noticed she would have to stop periodically to refresh the water so it would remain scalding hot. When this would happen, she'd get up to fetch a kettle off the stove – and once that was poured into her basin, she had to go out to the back and pump fresh water into a bucket, transfer that to the kettle, and boil it. Rinse and repeat, as it were. It looked tiring, but not technically difficult. So Anastas wheedled the task from her. After a little arguing, she consented to him taking over the kettle duty, provided he tell her if he was tired. (Anastas agreed to this with a smile and then promptly 'forgot' the agreement, because he was going to repay Bedelia somehow and this was the best option he had.)

“I’ll entertain your questions now,” She was carefully unclipping lace from a sleeve.

Anastas started with what he considered the most obvious. “You said Vasya was on sabbatical. Did she tell you where she was going?”

Bedelia nodded once, then shook her head. “Afraid not. Said it was a family matter that wanted dealing with, and she’d be back before a week was out.” Her face was full of pity.

Anastas did not want to think of that. It had been so much longer than a week now.

“She said nothing about where she was going? Maybe someone she would meet…?”

Again Bedelia shook her head. “She talked with my husband about it, a bit. But they discussed it in the study, and I don't go in there unless I'm invited, you understand.” She took a shirt from the tub she was working with and plunged it into the one Anastas had been filling to soak. “Just as he stays out of my kitchen unless he’s invited.”

Anastas shifted. “Do you think… maybe he would tell me? If he knew something?” He hesitated by the door with the empty bucket, and Bedelia tilted her head. 

“I’m sure he’d tell you, dear, only that he’s away at the moment. But- if you can stay an evening or two, you might catch him.”

Anastas glanced at the tubs. “Okay.” He rubbed his thumb against the rough metal of the handle and tried to think. “Why didn’t you think Vasya had family?” He asked, and meant _does my sister not talk about me to anyone at all?_

Bedelia examined him, looking knowing, and maybe she heard the words he hadn’t asked as well as the ones he had. “Your sister is a private woman. I’ve known her about ten years now, and I scarcely would have known about any loss if the Ward didn’t light up with gossip every time a Parishioner passes on. When your mother went and Vasilissa said nothing about it-” She shook her head a little, something like shame pinching her features. “I had just assumed… maybe you had gone the same way, dear.”

Thinking of his own mortality made Anastas balk. He shoved it away and moved on, a little paler for the trouble. “What about Ascelin? Is he really friends with Vasya?”

Bedelia's expression was somewhere between pity and caution. “I think they were, as much as someone like Ascelin might be friends with… well.” She tried to find a kind way to phrase it, then her shoulders slumped. “Anyone. He’s a troublesome person.”

“What does that mean?” Anastas asked, though he was pretty sure that at minimum it meant ‘Ascelin is poorly socialized’, since he had spent, well, a collective few days around the man. 

“He’s callous.” Bedelia scrubbed at the material, “And obsessive. But then most of the Choir hunters are.” She was quiet for a while, embroiled in her work. Her skin was an angry red from the washing, but Anastas didn’t think she noticed.

“I _do_ think well of him.” Bedelia said, and Anastas hesitated. “But I don't forget he can be a danger. When he gets an idea in his head- you know, I'm not sure he considers what the consequences will be. Just ploughs on ahead.”

Anastas had to consider whether that tracked. Ascelin did seem to think _some_ things through… “He made sure people knew I wasn’t- ah, hired help.”

Bedelia’s mouth twitched like she’d bit a lemon, rind and all. “Well. We should all be grateful for _that_.”

… Maybe that hadn’t been the best example.

“What I meant, dear, is I don’t think he considers how his actions affect others.” Having said so, Bedelia stood up and took the linen shift she’d been cleaning to the mangler. 

No, that- That _definitely_ tracked. Anastas pressed a hand to his mouth and nodded.

Bedelia sighed and pressed her lips thin, “And while I'm being honest, his relationship with your sister is a strange thing. I think if she never introduced you to him, well. There was probably a good reason for it.”

Anastas shifted. “She never introduced me to you, either.”

For some reason Bedelia looked saddened by that, but she didn’t argue with him. 

Anastas bowed his head. Feeling contrite, though he’d said nothing untrue or meant to wound, he traded his bucket for the iron kettle and excused himself to refill it out back.

It was heavy empty, and with his arms tired from pumping, it took a while before he got it back inside. He heaved it up to set on the hob, his arms straining from the weight, and then collapsed on the stool by the oven to catch his breath. He’d never really gotten used to hard labor, since Vasilissa or the courier handled most of their heavy lifting. 

His veins ached, but - there wasn't anything to be done for that. He’d used his last vial in the alley and— anyway, the idea of asking for somewhere he could use a blood vial in Bedelia’s house was too shameful to really contemplate. He could wait until nightfall. He’d gone longer without.

“Your mother,” Bedelia said, interrupting his thoughts. “She was a proud woman, as I heard it.”

Anastas blinked at her. “I… yes. She was.” Even when she’d gotten sick, she’d insisted on doing what she could for herself. They had realized she wasn’t getting better when she stopped fighting about things like helping her sit up in the sickbed.

Bedelia nodded to herself. “Perhaps she infected Miss Vasilissa with some of that pride.” She said, with some meaning in her voice he couldn't decipher.

Did that mean Vasilissa had gotten in over her head? Anastas glanced at Bedelia, who seemed wholly focused on the washing. 

The work kept them busy most of the day, but close to sunset - with Ascelin still not back - Bedelia stopped, wrung out the last clothes, and hung them near the tubs. Then she threw a lump of proofed bread dough into the oven. “Well. Since Ascelin is not back, you can stay for dinner, can’t you?”

“If it’s no trouble.” Anastas bowed his head to her. “Please tell me what I can do.”  
  
  


#

Bedelia lived in a two-story townhouse, with narrow halls and low doorways. The items inside were mostly wood, hand-carved and roughly sanded. The dining room was little more than a corner hall connecting antechamber and kitchen (a room that Anastas guessed probably made up half of the first story), and the table in it looked as if it had been broken once and then mended. The chairs had mismatched cushions dyed with bright colors - some of the only cheer in the little apartment. On the kitchen wall by that table several pen sketches were tacked.

The kitchen fireplace had a curious spoon hanging above it. Carved from wood and embellished with hearts, it did not look like an instrument for eating: from its handle hung a chain of more cut wood, without hint of seams and with smooth heart-shaped ‘links’. It was that which kept Anastas’s attention when he wasn’t looking at Bedelia.

Bedelia chuckled, and he looked to the table where she was doing her mending and waiting on the bread. “A love spoon.” She nodded to the carving. “My husband made it when he was courting me. A little old-fashioned, but… I don’t know. No one had ever made me something like that before.” Her eyes glittered, “So I decided maybe I would keep him.”

“It’s charming,” Anastas smiled a little. “I’ve never seen anything like it. He must be skilled.”

“Your father didn’t make one when he was courting your mother?” Bedelia asked, then her face shifted to contrition, “If you don’t mind my asking. I don’t mean to pry.”

Anastas felt a little guilty himself, since he’d spent a good part of the afternoon prying. “No. My mother was - well. Father courted her with other things. Books. A flint box, a dagger.”

Bedelia gave him an odd look, then brightened in recognition. “Oh. Yes, your sister’s knife. The one with the wolf, wasn’t it?”

Anastas smiled. “Yes, that’s the one. The Wolf-Fang. He wanted her to be protected if she joined the family.”

His mother had told the story often, before their father’s death, and then again after the mourning period had passed.

“She had other suitors.” Anastas added, because he didn't want to impugn his mother's memory by implying the only man who would marry her was a foreign-born gentleman. “But she said the knife made her choice easy.”

Bedelia had an odd smile on her mouth. “That’s a- very big name for such a little knife.” She commented, trying not to chuckle. “And an unusual sentiment, though I’m happy it suited her.”

“Isn’t it?” Anastas grinned back and wrapped his arms around his knees. “It’s really not meant for fighting, unless you’re desperate. Father said it was made for hiding in a boot, or a shirtsleeve.”

Bedelia blinked and sat up straight. “Oh! Well, I’m not sure how I feel about that… it must not be made for beasts.”

Anastas paused, weighing her words. “You know. I hadn’t thought of that, but it _is_ a little odd, isn’t it.” Remembering that there was a time that people were more likely to be a threat to each other than beasts were. “I wonder why it changed.” He shifted. “Things started to look up after the discoveries at Byrgenwerth. And then the beasts came.”

Bedelia sighed. “Perhaps the gods don’t want us coming too near to them.” She mused, “Or they’re testing our perseverance.”

#

For a while after they lapsed into an uncomfortable silence.

Bedelia got up to check the bread, took the loaf out, and served bowls of stew. She sat down to eat, without any sign of her husband. When she sat down across from Anastas she startled a little, like she'd remembered something, then chuckled into her hand. “Do you know, when I was young-”

“Not so long ago, then,” Anastas interjected with a weak smile.

“Ha. Charmer. You don’t need to flatter me for another serving.” Bedelia stirred her bowl and hummed herself. “When I was young, there was an outbreak of the scourge, and it became a popular theory that people with certain attributes were more likely to grow ill.” She pulled back her lips, flashing the gaps where her eyeteeth ought to have been. “My father - our line’s a real old one, you understand, even if we’re not of fine stuff - had my teeth pulled, he did, when they came in sharp as a wolf’s, and put them in a charm to ward off the scourge. Thought it would protect me.” Her expression went a bit distant. “Couldn’t tell you if it worked.”

Anastas twitched, disturbed by this, though he couldn’t pinpoint precisely why it bothered him. “My sister, she…” He paused, stopped. “She said people do a lot of things. To try and guard against the illness.”

Bedelia nodded. “So they do. So they do.” Her gaze flickered to the wall, and the messy sketches hung on it. Anastas looked with her, and realized there were notes - or something like them - in a script he didn’t know. 

“… what is that?” He asked, then, “Is that a spell?”

Bedelia startled. “Goodness, I hope not. No, those are my husband’s. He likes to tack them up where he works. Should see his study…” She shook her head. “But should be nothing to do with the illness, no. Mira-love is an archaeologist. Likes to play in the dirt all day and dig things up.”

Anastas’s lips twitched. “That’s interesting.” He admitted, a little more comfortable with this topic. “It must drive you crazy, though.”

“I don’t do his washings, if that’s what you mean.” Bedelia''s lips twisted like she'd bit a lemon. “If hunters want to make a mess that’s all well and good, but they’ll be paying for the privilege of having it cleaned by yours truly.”

“… Even Ascelin?” Anastas asked.

Bedelia turned a crooked, glittering smile on him. “My dear, I charge Ascelin triple and he thanks me for the privilege.” She stood up to get more soup. “If I won’t do free labour for the hunter I'm married to, I will not do it for our friends.”

“Wait, I thought your husband was an archaeologist,” Anastas started, but then he heard the front door, and they both turned to look.

It wasn’t Ascelin, so the man that stepped in from the antechamber must have been Bedelia’s spouse. He was tall enough that he took up most of the doorway, and needed to duck his head on the way in. (Gratefully, the ceiling was high enough to accommodate him - it was only the doorways which he had to stoop through). He had a build to match, stocky-looking, with enough fat to look like a bear rather than a statue.

He smelled and looked like he'd crawled out of a hole in someone's garden. He was wearing sturdy clothes meant for exploration more than aesthetics, and had a lantern still lit and clipped to his belt and another in his hand. Under the filth he wasn’t bad looking, with messy pale hair and a scruffy beard. Mostly he looked normal, and tired.

Anastas, watching the man rub at a bit of blood on his cheek, was struck with the thought _he looks like he would give good hugs_.

Brown eyes focused on him, and the prospector paused. “… Anastas?” He said, uncertain. “You must be Anastas. You look just like-” His voice cracked a moment, and intense discomfort passed his face. “Like Vera. What are you doing here?”

… oh. _Oh._ Yes, Anastas knew this man. This was Vasilissa’s fiancé- er, the ex-fiancé . The one she’d had some messy breakup with!

(Mother had been furious for months. The whole thing had been a shame - he’d been very nice, in Anastas’s memory.)

What was his name-? Something with ‘dear’ in it…

The man crossed the room to examine Anastas, his brow creasing.

“Drogomir!” Anastas said, pleased to have remembered. Then, “Wait, I thought you weren’t speaking to any of us.” His brows creased down, and he stared at the man, uncertain whether he was to be ejected from the house.

But Drogomir did not look angry - his expression was pinched from discomfort, and his eyes were sad. “No. No, that is-” He cleared his throat. “I apologize. This wants explaining, but maybe you could forgive me and let it go a moment? I… I would like to know what you are doing here?”

Anastas was debating how to put this when Bedelia saved him the trouble.

“Ascelin brought him by and ran off.” She set down two bowls of stew on the table perhaps more loudly than she needed to, then took Anya’s empty one so he could have another. 

Drogomir’s eyes widened, and his discomfort went beyond what Anastas knew how to describe (stepped in blood and feces? Stuck his hand in a hole and found something wet? Maybe 'found a family member's dirty books'? Hmm). Then Drogomir's shoulders slumped. “I don’t know why I put up with him.” He muttered, and pulled out the chair beside his wife’s to sink down. “He does nothing but dig up trouble.”

“Because he makes you laugh,” Bedelia supposed without judgement, “And because he introduced us.”

The tomb prospector buried his head in his arms.

Anastas could relate. “He came looking for my sister,” He said, hoping that giving information would get him something back. “She’s been missing since the last Hunt.”

“She’s _what?_ ” Drogo sat up straight in his seat. “What about the family business? She-” His eyes narrowed and he made a face, groaned, “There was no business, was there.”

Anastas waited, watching the man with growing concern, as he mumbled and seemed to distress himself further - even lapsing into another tongue, one which Anastas only understood because his father, and now his sister, would speak in it.

… _do not understand what she is thinking… could have at least told me… serves her right that Ascelin found out, if she didn’t think he would sniff around when they are the same_ _ **nosy goddamn person-**_

Well. He mostly understood. It would help if Drogomir would finish one complaint before jumping into another.

“Did she mention where she was going?”

Drogomir let out an aggravated noise and waved his hand. “No, which means she knew it was something I would disagree with.” Then he rubbed his forehead and cursed again, mumbling something like: _That woman is troublesome. I cannot believe my parents wished her on me._

… Anastas tried to be offended, but he’d had a long week and a dreary month that were at least in part due to Vasilissa's negligence. And his sister was also just… a lot.

“I can understand you.” He said instead, since earlier didn't seem to have gotten that across.

Drogo shrugged. “I will say it to her face again when she shows up.” He paused, then turned the same sort of unbearably soft look Bedelia kept getting in her eyes on Anya. “Well, what of you? I have not seen you since you were… what? Four? Five? How are you?”

Anastas shifted in his seat. “I… I suppose well enough, for the circumstances.” He looked closely at Drogomir and managed a smile. “I wish you had visited, if you're not finished with my family.”

Drogomir frowned and bowed his head. “Your mother was… not happy when I broke off the engagement.”

Anastas remembered. “She was a touch cross.”

Drogomir snorted. “She said that she would light me on fire if I showed my face around again.”

Anastas winced and folded his hands, peering up at Drogomir. “Oh. I’m very sorry about that. It wasn’t very kind of her, and I’m sure you had your reasons.”

Drogomir stared at him a long moment, then snorted a laugh and dug into his food. Anastas didn’t see what was funny about it, but he let go of the matter.

“I’m happy to see you.” Drogomir said, and Anastas shifted in his chair and gave him an uncertain look. Drogo didn’t _look_ happy to see him.

Drogo met his eye, let out a heavy sigh, and set his spoon down. “Alright. I’m not happy to see you.” He said, holding up a hand to stall Anastas - what? Getting up and pardoning himself from the house?

(Well. He did think about it.) 

“But it’s no fault of yours,” Drogomir continued, “I’m unhappy because your mother must be worried-” He paused to grunt here, and glanced at Bedelia uncomprehendingly, and Anastas thought she must have stepped on his foot or something else unseen. Anastas felt kicked, for entirely different reasons.

“- and I don’t know where your sister is, or how you came to be here.”

Best to get the easy part out of the way. “Well- Ascelin sent me here.” Anastas reminded, wrapping his arms around himself. “About mom- I wouldn’t say she’s worried, no.”

Drogomir stared at him, and Anastas was trying to figure out how to broach the subject more gingerly than ‘she can’t really worry at all anymore’, when Bedelia dug her elbow into her husband’s ribs right where Anya could see her.

“Darling,” She said, in a voice like a warning, and gave him a look. Drogomir looked back at her with his brows furrowing lower and lower by the second.

“Of course your mother would be worried.” Drogomir said, haltingly, “She loves you very much…”

Anastas refused to cry in company. He took a deep breath, then another, and looked down at his dark clothes. 

Drogomir followed his gaze and stared at the mourning black.

“… oh.” He said, then, _“Oh._ ” Then, “ _Blyat, ya grebanii idiot_.” He rubbed his face and groaned.

Anastas sighed. “ _Ya vse yesheche mogu tebya ponyat_ , Drogomir Ivanovich.”

“I’m going to kill your sister for not telling me about your mother _and_ for teaching you those words, then.” Drogomir mumbled, pressing his hands against his temples. “Vera didn’t understand it.”

“Vera could curse in it.” Anastas corrected, shifting in his seat. “And Vaska talks in it when she’s not thinking.”

“Of course she does. And you picked it up because-” Drogomir sighed and shook his head. “Nevermind. I’m- I’m so sorry, Anastas.”

No crying, Anastas reminded himself. There was nothing to cry about. People said sorry all the time when they found out, and it was just a noise they made, and he was fine. “You didn’t know.” He said, then paused. Bedelia knew. He looked at Bedelia, who had the expression of someone who’d bitten into an apple and found a wormhole.

“I thought Miss Vasilissa would have at least said something to you.” She murmured toward her husband, “I knew from gossip around the Church…”

“No.” Drogo rubbed his temples. “She never breathed a word. Just asked a bunch of questions about-” He paused and looked down at his bowl, then stood from the table. His chair scraped loudly on the floor, startling Anastas, who’d been trying to focus on anything but his own mind. Drogomir walked around the table, a stormy look on his face, and-

It made no sense, really, but Anastas assumed he was about to be thrown out. He cringed away from the hand coming down on his shoulder- but Drogomir didn’t drag him from his chair. He bent over and hugged Anastas from behind, tucking his chin over Anastas’s hair.

Anastas didn’t know what to do. So he just stayed still. 

“I am so, so sorry. _Mne ochen zhal_.” Drogo told him, patting his shoulder with a big hand. “You haven’t done anything wrong, alright? Anya-” Anastas did not protest the diminutive. He curled up in the seat, and Drogomir talked to him in the same language his oldest sister and his father used to talk to him in, and it- hurt. Like someone was cutting him open.

Anastas made a noise - he didn’t mean to, but it slipped out, small and broken, and - the crying started. Bedelia got up to excuse herself, and he was grateful for one less person to see the tears. Drogomir couldn’t really see them from where he was, but he could feel the shaking, and he continued to murmur nonsense Anastas did not need to respond to until the worst of it was out. 

#

Bedelia reappeared when Anastas was washing his face in the sink. He watched, in the window's reflection, as she gave him a careful examination and then turned to give Drogomir a searching look. Drogomir shrugged at her, and Anastas splashed more cold water on his face, hoping to get the worst of the flush to go away. At least his skin was dark. If he was as pale as Drogomir, or gods forbid Ascelin, it would be a million times more obvious.

“Well.” Bedelia started, in the voice of someone who was determined to carry on as if all was normal. “I was going to save it for later, but I think maybe wine and cake are in order.”

“You made cake?” Drogomir looked oddly touched.

“It’s your first time back in a month! Of course I made cake.” Bedelia gave him a firm pat on the shoulder, then bustled closer to Anastas. 

She lowered her voice, probably more out of courtesy than usefulness. “How are you feeling, Master Volkov?”

Anastas took a breath to steady himself. “… horribly embarrassed to have cried at your dinner table.”

Bedelia blew a raspberry. “I’ll forgive you if you have a bit of cake with us. Do you think you can?”

Anastas turned a little wan smile on her. “You’re going to make me fat.”

“Nonsense!” Drogomir called from the table, confirming that he could definitely hear them. “Your sister doesn’t feed you enough! You are almost seventeen, you should at least come up to my chest!”

Anastas made a face at him. “Vera was short, too…”

“Because she didn’t eat enough! I told her, you have to eat more if you want to grow, and she didn’t listen.” Drogomir insisted. “And see, at sixteen she was even smaller than you. She was mistaken for a little girl all the time.”

Anastas’s heart twinged, but - he missed Vera. Of course it hurt to talk about her. Not talking about her hurt, too. He mustered a smile and went back to the table, where he laced his fingers on the wood. “Girls are supposed to be short.”

“Not that short.” Drogomir held out a hand to indicate someone much smaller than Vera (at least, the Vera of Anastas’s memory) had been. “She was practically a dwarf. I sometimes wondered if she wasn’t a changeling.”

Anastas blinked at him. “Am _I_ a changeling?”

Drogomir eyed him critically. “A teenage boy who does not eat like he’s starving? _…_ Yes, probably a changeling.”

Anastas looked down to hide his smile widening. “Maybe I’m just not supposed to grow into a bear.” He mumbled, and turned to see if Bedelia would let him help with anything.

He must have looked really pathetic, because she stopped mid-refusal, sighed, and gave him a rag to clear the table and wipe it down.

“Your oldest sister was taller than you are now when we were ten.” Drogomir insisted when Anya came closer. 

Anastas made a face at him. “You can’t compare me to _Vaska_. She’s practically a tree. We can’t all be trees, either.”

Drogomir shrugged, a self-satisfied smile twisting up his mouth, and got up to fetch a bottle of wine from the pantry. “Delia, do we have grape-juice? He’s too small for spirits.”

“I’m _almost seventeen._ ” Anastas was affronted.

“And you are the size of an eight-year-old. You will get drunk. No alcohol.”

“He can have some if it’s mixed with water, love.” Bedelia compromised, smiling a little while she cut the cake up. The slice she carried over and set at Anastas’s spot was a bit bigger than he thought he could eat, par for the course.

“Ack, fine. He can have a thimble. Only because you said he could, Delia.”

Bedelia snorted and put down two more plates. “Are you going to pour it or not?”

The normalcy felt a little strange, but it was pleasant. Anastas sat down with Bedelia and Drogomir, and he felt a little guilty but he - tried, for a little while. Not to forget what he was missing, just to enjoy what he had then. The happiness felt stolen, but it was his, and he wanted to keep it close for when he was alone again.

(He knew very, very well now that all happiness was fleeting. Every time he let himself forget before—) 

The cake was good. Moist, with a smooth icing and preserves slathered between the two layers. Much better than his attempts at following magazine clippings or his mother’s old cookbooks.

(Well. It didn’t bear thinking about now, did it.) 

The wine was— well, wine. He didn’t love it, and he mostly drank it to wash down the sweetness of the cake. 

When he felt too full, Anastas pushed the little pieces left around his plate, trying to decide if he could fit more in his belly by slowing down, or if he would have to own up to not finishing.

Then he glanced at Bedelia, who was sipping her wine with a far-off stare (she was mouthing what he thought were numbers, so, probably working), and Drogomir, who was… tucking into his cake with visible happiness.

Anastas blinked at him and smiled a little, tilting his head, charmed probably more than he should have by the simple joy on his host's face. 

Drogomir caught his eye and arched his brows at him, slowing his chewing. He tilted his head a little at Anya and gestured to solicit an explanation.

Anastas shifted in his chair. “Is it true Hunters don’t need to eat?”

Drogomir blinked. He swallowed and brought up a hand to wobble in a so-so gesture. “We need little. There’s something else sustaining us- but… hm.” His brow furrowed down and he brushed a hand over his beard. “I mean- I would feel worse if I didn’t eat.”

Anastas chewed his lip. “It’s just that Vaska eats. Not always things that make sense to me, but. She eats. So I guess I had figured hunters had to- but then someone told me they didn’t…”

“Ah,” Drogomir’s eyes lit up. He leaned closer and waved his finger. “ _That_. That, I can explain.” He waited a moment, and Anastas nodded a little, and Drogomir very deliberately — like he was imparting a revelation — said, “People eat.” 

Anastas blinked. Waited a little while. But nothing else spilled out, so he tilted his head. “That hasn’t escaped my attention?”

Drogomir snorted. “You’re missing a step. I’ll give you a moment.”

Anastas bit his lip. He didn’t think Drogomir would lie to him, even if he liked to tease, so he thought about it. People ate food. Hunters didn’t need to eat, but some of them liked to. 

… Anastas chewed his lip. “Do you mean maybe that humans eat?” He asked Drogo, who smiled at him like the question pleased him. The attention made Anastas flush, embarrassed by - gods, positive attention. He was getting badly socialized himself if a proud smile made him feel like he was dying.

“No. I meant people.” Drogo clarified, and waved his hand. “But you’re onto something. Keep going.”

So Anastas tried. Humans needed to eat. Hunters didn’t. But people ate. There was a distinction to be found if he could only dig it up. He glanced at Drogomir, who smiled in encouragement. He looked at the cake on his own plate. He thought of Vaska, insistent on buying fresh fruit whenever they could get it. And- he ended up thinking of their father.

Vasily Volkov was a Hunter who dressed like a gentleman. He always had fresh linens, he always had hand-sewn gloves, he fought with a cane and spoke like an eccentric noble (he couldn’t really land anything else, with the thick accent he’d had).

It had puzzled Vera, mostly because suits were not the best clothes to fight in, and so his hunting clothes often wanted mending. He’d insisted, whenever she asked about it, that ' _formality, beauty, and justice_ ’ were the domain of society, and the divider between man and beast.

(Usually by this point, Vera would roll her eyes and tell him to do his own damn mending, and Anastas would gasp because she’d said a rude word, and their mother would laugh from the chair by the fire and Vasilissa would roll her eyes at their father while he pretended to be scandalized that his second child would say such hurtful things.) 

Anastas hadn’t thought about those times as of late, beyond dreams. But they’d guided him when he was trying to navigate the world alone.

“Hunters are halfway to beasts,” He said, staring at his fingers. “Aren’t you.”

Drogomir shifted, and Anastas couldn’t bring himself to look up at him. At the corner of his eye he could see Bedelia had gone still and pale in her chair.

Drogo’s voice rumbled, and when he spoke it was quiet, somber- but there was still an edge of pleasure to it, as if Anastas had solved something difficult. “Yes. That’s true.”

Then he reached across the narrow table and folded his hand over Anastas’s. 

It didn’t look like a monster’s hand. But the skin was cool against Anastas’s, and the wrist was maybe a little too long, the tendons obvious and the knuckles bony.

“Hunters make ourselves into something else, so we can fight monsters and have a passing chance to survive them.” Drogomir rubbed his thumb against Anastas’s wrist. “Beasthood is a state of mind. To stay out of that state — we need things to ground us.” Drogomir squeezed his fingers, and Anastas tried to focus on the sensation. “Your sister has you, you know. Your parents, when they were alive, and… Vera. Of course, she had Vera.” He squeezed a little tighter. “Even if I’m not human anymore, I am still a person. I want to remember that. So I eat good food, I spend time with my wife.” He let go, finally, and waved at the house around them, the wall of sketches, the crackling fire in the hearth, “I live.”

Anastas nodded slowly. He thought of the human hand on the monster, of sharp teeth smiling at him, through bandages or from under a blindfold or in a dark alley waiting for him to happen by. “Okay. So what— what happens when a hunter is untethered?”

Drogomir did not pretend to misunderstand him. “In that case, well. Usually,” He folded his hands, “They forget they were ever human, or why they became hunters. Often they hurt someone, and they have to be put down.”

 _Put down_. Like a dog that turned on its owner. 

Anastas shifted in his chair, uncomfortable. “Do they like killing?” He asked, feeling as if he shouldn’t have, like he could just shut his mouth and forget any of this.

“Mostly.” Drogomir said, “For one reason or another. We don’t have a choice about hunting- we’re driven to it. Some of us can channel that, and others can’t.” He rubbed his brow, then turned to peer directly at Anya again, his face creased with concern. “Anastas… do you feel safe?”

Anastas blinked at him for the strange question. “… As safe as I can be.” He said, thinking of the world outside the townhouse. “Why?”

Drogomir reached across the table again and held his hand with the palm turned up. Puzzled, Anastas reached over and tapped the middle of his palm. The man’s fingers twitched like they wanted to curl in. 

“I wouldn’t have anything happen to you,” Drogomir was grim-faced. “Or let anyone make you feel like you’re pushed into a corner.”

It was a little late for that. Anastas tried to smile. “I wouldn’t say I’m in a corner, exactly. But there is someone after me, maybe, and there’s little to do about it.” He shifted, then paused. “Say, do you know how to dismantle pistols?”

Drogomir's brows furrowed down, and his lips pressed thin. He eyed Anastas as if he'd realized he was holding a venomous snake, instead of an adolescent boy with frosting on his face. “… Yes…” Drogo sounded the word out. “Yes, I… not at the table. After cake.”

“Alright.” Cheered a little by the promise of progress, Anastas made himself clean his plate. 

#

When Anastas looked out the window again the sky was black and the moon was hanging over the town, and he realized he wasn’t sure where the nearest Chapel was. He started tracing the route he’d taken in his head.

Drogomir interrupted this by standing from the table.

Anastas blinked at him, and the man said, “Come.”

Anastas got up. Maybe, since Drogomir was worried, he would be willing to escort him to safety. Anastas would certainly feel safer than if he went alone, and-

“You can sleep in the guest room.” Drogomir said, and Anastas stumbled. “It’s not much, but it’s warm and you’ll be safe in it.”

Anya bit his lip. “You’re sure?” He asked, wondering what he’d pay for the kindness. He’d already spent a lot of social currency he wasn’t sure he could pay, today.

Drogomir snorted. “Am I sure, he asks. Am I a liar?”

“Ah- no?” Anastas looked up at him, alarmed. “I’m sorry.”

“You should be sorry.” Drogomir grumbled, then looked down at him and softened. “You’ve met a lot of trouble. I can’t fix that, but if I can help you I will.”

He’d said something like that earlier, but Anastas had assumed it was perfunctory kindness. Drogomir was a good person, but they barely knew one another. And apparently his sister was friends with Drogomir, but also caused him a good deal of grief.

“I don’t understand.” Anastas admitted, and looked at their shoes so he wouldn't have to meet Drogomir’s eye.

“Blin. Nastyusha-” Anastas’s flush darkened; he had not been called that since his mother had died. 

(If _Ascelin_ tried to call him that, he’d probably try to kill the man. It was the way you’d talk to a child, or a pet, or someone… you were promising to safeguard.)

“I knew you when you were a child.” Drogomir told him. “Your sister was in my wedding party. How could I do anything but help you?”

“… You were engaged to my sister.” Anastas looked up at him in suspicion. 

Drogomir’s eyes crinkled with his laughter. “Yes, both of our parents were furious when I eloped with Delia. I’m not sure Vasya told yours that she agreed to be best man.” He reached out a hand and hesitated a moment, then when Anastas leaned forward a little, Drogomir patted his head. “You think I am being polite, but I mean these things. You can come to me, and I will help. You do not need to think that you are alone, even if Vasya is not here.”

Tears pricked Anastas’s eyes. “… oh.” He said, a little weaker than he wanted to. He should thank Drogomir. He should…

Ah. He was crying again. Damnit. Drogomir held his arms open, and Anastas leaned in and hugged him this time.

Drogomir was warm, and his heartbeat was steady, and it felt nice when he patted Anastas’s back and shushed him. Anastas just tried to focus on breathing. He couldn’t say it was like hugging Vasilissa - Drogomir was broader and softer, and he kept murmuring platitudes - but it was… good in a different way. And the feeling that he was protected was the same — though he had trouble imagining Drogomir raising a weapon to anyone.

“You’re safe here,” Drogomir assured him, and Anastas believed it, “We won’t turn you away. You’re safe, Anya.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Ya grebanii idiot: Fuck, I'm a fucking idiot.  
> **I can still understand you, Drogomir Ivanovich.  
> Some other notes: using a patronymic like Anya did in the above like confers that he's speaking very formally, akin to addressing someone with 'mister' or 'sir'. 
> 
> Might prod at the Russian later, I've only been studying the language a little while and almost definitely butchered stuff (google translate isn't the most helpful friend). 
> 
> I've also been working on some Dark Souls stuff (where is my Solaire/Lautrec trash I ask you. Where.) and a Bloodborne fic or two that aren't made of tears and screaming. Those will be up, um, eventually :'> well, okay, Moonlight Requiem can't go up until I finish this because of reasons, but the others can.


	11. Problem-Solving for Hunters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ascelin's idea of functional adulthood seems to be showing up to work and not getting in trouble for killing anyone he _wasn't_ supposed to. Ludwig pulls him aside for some overdue questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took forever. *cries* I can't believe it's been two weeks... but this was just a kicking and screaming monster, and I kept bouncing off from it to work on side stories and oneshots whenever I was frustrated (which was often). Also I ended up shipping some things while writing this story, oops.
> 
> Thank you to MissMonie for betaing the original version of this and helping me excise the bits that weren't working - I dragged it through an overhaul from hell since, so as ever any mistakes are my own. Thank you to Cloudycats for the insightful comments, and thank you to the people who've left kudos and even bookmarked and subbed Choral Comp, I'm really happy anyone is reading this very niche fic and hope you continue to enjoy it<3

Angry hissing woke Ascelin up. He thought he was dreaming it at first, but then something bit his hand and startled him awake. He flailed, which scared off the pest and saw him slap over a pile of books. Those rained down on him with all the wrath they could fit between their battered covers. 

It was a lot of wrath. A truly unfortunate amount. He sort-of slid to the floor and stared under his bed in consternation.

Several sets of eyes glowed back from the dark, accompanied by a furious concerto of hissing.

Bewildered, Ascelin said the first thing he could think of: “I just fed you.” Then he looked at his bloody hand, and rolled over enough to see the light from the window — red with sunset — and let out a heavy sigh.

If he’d slept the whole afternoon, he must have really needed it. He crawled out of the graveyard of books and promised himself he’d take a proper bath after this shift (ignoring that he’d promised himself the same before he slept, because he just didn’t have time now) and washed at the basin again. Then he put on his last Choir set and headed out. 

(He paused long enough to lock it, and make sure none of the snakes could fit through the narrow gap at the bottom. The last thing he needed today was Circe going to explore the common floor and getting killed by one of his colleagues in a moment of misplaced terror.)

#

The Upper Cathedral Ward lamp had two grim-faced hunters watching it, dressed in white church garb.

(Hunters could travel quickly with the lamps, but Ascelin tried to avoid it outside of emergencies. It felt weird, and civilians seemed distressed when they noticed it, and he had enough trouble getting people to trust him without turning into dust or appearing from the same right before their eyes.) 

When he made it down to the workshop the worst of the rush was over, which was nice. Maybe he should try leaving for work _from_ his apartment more often.

He thought that as he rounded the bottom of the stairs, and then heard the Captain’s voice boom, “Carim! Just who I was hoping to see.” 

This was immediately suspicious to Ascelin, because if Ludwig needed something professional he could have just sent a note.

Ascelin’s eyes shot toward the door. So close and yet out of his reach, a tragedy. “Holy Blade Ludwig,” He greeted, and reminded himself that running away from his boss would end in some kind of censure. “Hi. So nice to see you so soon.” He made himself turn towards the desk Ludwig used for clerical work. 

Ludwig was standing in front of it, with a variety of paperwork scattered across the surface. He gestured Ascelin closer, so Ascelin took a breath and walked up to his absolute behemoth of a supervisor to have a look. It was… a lot, schedules, patrols, leave notes and switches and- really, it looked like someone had upended the administration records on the desk. He eyed Ludwig and considered it; the idea was plausible.

The records for patrol shifts stretched back several months: most of the names were unfamiliar to Ascelin, if not entirely novel and strange. 

“You mentioned a Harrowed,” Ludwig gestured at the pile. “I was hoping you might have something else of note to work off of?”

Ascelin looked at all of it and shook his head. “Mais. I don’t… it wasn’t one I personally knew.” If he’d known the guy personally, he’d probably have been a little more thorough. Like burning him in his own bed _thorough_. “I knew the look of him, that’s it.”

Ludwig tapped the tabletop. He looked contemplative; it was a look familiar to Ascelin, as it usually preceded difficult hunts. “I would find it very useful if you could tell me about that. Would you?”

Ascelin touched his claws to one paper, which detailed transactions from the Quartermaster. Pungent blood cocktails were a rather expensive commodity; people rarely bought more than absolutely necessary for that reason. Ten a week of the things seemed a mite excessive to him. 

“We pass by each other often.” He said, slow so he could measure the words. “Coming to and from the Forbidden Woods. Sometimes he’d smile at me.” Ascelin paused, lingering on one memory that stood out from the others: the beggar had been splattered with blood, that day, and Ascelin remembered thinking it odd because it didn’t smell afflicted. “Didn’t like the look of him, so I steered clear. We never talked. He always smelled like a charnel house.”

Ludwig crossed his arms. “But you were sure he’d gone off the rails. And that he wasn’t pursuing a victim of the Scourge. Why is that?”

Because the kid was still capable of fear. Because he was blood-addicted, but not drunk.

Because Ascelin had seen the beggar watching the children that ran along the streets in daylight with something hungry about him. Ascelin wasn’t the best with names, but he was pretty good at remembering faces.

(And on some level, because he trusted someone crying for help more than he trusted someone reassuring him that everything was fine.)

“He was chasing a parishioner,” Ascelin reiterated, because none of that was a good enough reason, and because he didn’t believe in giving someone more advantages than they needed. He’d keep his reasoning to himself. “After I had found others, I assumed the worst. He would not drop his weapon, so I eliminated him.” 

Ascelin let go of the page and reached up, brushing his fingers against the charm half-hidden by his ribbon. Well… frankly put, the Harrowed hadn’t had the _opportunity_ to drop it; Ascelin had smiled at him, let him go past, and then doubled back and smashed his head into the brickwork with the Kirkhammer. So in a certain light this was all true, but it was a very specific one.

“And the parishioner?” Ludwig leaned his hip on the desk, making no attempt to pretend at anything other than watching Ascelin.

Ascelin stared back at him and wondered if he was supposed to be intimidated. Ludwig was big, and- well, that was about it. He was just big. The biggest person Ascelin had ever met. He supposed that might intimidate someone… Maybe he should act cowed?

“They weren’t inflicted.” Ascelin wasn’t sure what else to say, “Their eyes were normal, they weren’t even inebriated.”

“They did not resemble someone in the docile stage?” Ludwig asked, scrutinizing him. He didn’t appear to be upset, so maybe he wasn’t trying to intimidate Ascelin and it was therefore better that Ascelin had not acted cowed. Great.

“No. They were coherent.” Well, actually the kid had been hyperventilating and hiding in a trash pile, but whatever. Details.

“So you spent much time around them?” Ludwig prodded. “Enough to assess whether they were ill.”

Ascelin tipped his head a little. “… not much, no.”

Ludwig smiled. “You assessed their mental state and bid them good evening?”

This felt like a trap. “I escorted them to the Cathedral for their own safety. Then I resumed my patrol.”

Ludwig hummed, watching him with eyes gone half-shut; for just a moment Ascelin could see the calculations plainly and relaxed a little. Plotting and scheming were things he understood.

“The patrol you traded for,” Ludwig started, “That Laurence signed off on, that you said you were- what, checking on a friend’s house during?”

This was altogether more information than Ascelin really wanted his bosses to make something of. “… Yes,” He said, wanting to lie but lacking plausible evidence to the contrary. (He briefly considered lying anyway, then imagined himself reporting to the Conductor for a conversation about it and decided it was better that he _not_. Even if he didn’t trust Ludwig, there were worse alternatives that a verbal dissection. Literal ones came to mind.)

Ludwig hummed, drumming his fingers against his arm. “Which friend?” He asked, and it was definitely a trap, and Ascelin tried to think if he knew anyone at all in that neighborhood besides Vasilissa. 

Time ticked down without Ascelin giving an answer. 

Ludwig smiled at him again, a little wan-looking, and cast a humorless glance at the papers. “You really think I do not see you.” He said, like it was interesting.

Ascelin shifted. Was that unreasonable of him to assume? Prior to this he would have said ‘no’.

Ludwig picked up something that wasn’t a shift roster and held it out to Ascelin.

… it was a leave of absence letter.

“What do you know about this, Carim?” Ludwig asked, almost conversational, but with the shape of his trap revealed Ascelin was certainly not going to mistake it for something it was not.

The handwriting was familiar, and the wording was… huh. “She filed for leave.” Ascelin realized, then, “Merdasse. She actually did.”

Ludwig cringed at the curse, and Ascelin side-eyed him. “Right, sorry, forgot you understood. Uh- I just. Wasn’t sure if she’d actually done — that.” He examined the last lines, and added, “But the family business part. That’s bull.”

Ludwig took the paper back. “Did you make Vasilissa Volkovna disappear?” He asked, and this Ascelin could answer with confidence.

“No. The last I saw her, she was sane, and she still dreamed. I had no reason to eliminate her.”

Ludwig’s shoulders relaxed, and he granted Ascelin a brief and strange smile; so far as Ascelin could see it was one of genuine happiness. 

Ludwig put the paper back on the desk. “Then her being missing is a problem, but one mostly unconnected to the Harrowed.”

“So it would seem. Ah…” Ascelin glanced at the door. It was a bit late to say so, but, “I think I’m meant to be researching tonight.”

Ludwig didn’t look up again. “My apologies, but I had your evening reassigned. I needed a second pair of eyes.” He straightened up and gestured grandly at the papers spilling all over the desk, and then he turned towards Ascelin and smiled like a benevolent prince.

Possibly more than he had ever wanted anything before that moment, Ascelin wanted to take the Kirkhammer from his back and use it to smack his boss.

Eyes glittering like he knew _exactly_ what he’d done, Ludwig added, “You’d better settle in.” His obvious enjoyment only made the desire for assault and battery stronger, but… Ascelin would not win that fight. At least. Probably not without poison, or maybe A Call Beyond. Hmm.

“It would be my honor to assist the Holy Blade.” Ascelin said, staring at the papers in consternation. 

#

There were — Ascelin allotted this very grudgingly — _some_ benefits to working in conjunction with Ludwig. He got a lot of information about how things were running than he otherwise would, mostly just from overhearing the reports of other hunters through the night, or even from offhand remarks Ludwig made himself. 

There were also downsides like small talk, and that Ludwig wasn’t an idiot, and also talked to his other superiors. That part Ascelin could really do without. 

“Laurence mentioned you brought a child to the Cathedral.” Ludwig was making notes in the margins of a hand-written file. The original writing didn’t match his, and Ascelin thought it might have been from the Vicar’s personnel files. He wondered how Ludwig had gotten around the secretary to get his hands on it, then realized the Vicar must have given it to him, himself. Which meant this was not Ludwig cleaning up a mess quietly, but something sanctioned.

Ludwig tipped his head. “Also something about staring for an hour and you thinking you’re more subtle than you are?”

Ascelin made a face. He was perfectly subtle.

For some reason, Ludwig sort-of chuckled and continued writing. 

Ascelin announced, “I did not stare at the Vicar for an hour.” Which was true. If he stared at Laurence for more than two minutes without speaking, the Vicar would stop what he was doing and either: throw a knife at Ascelin, if they were alone; or smile and ask if he needed more duties to attend, if they were not alone. In general, Ascelin did not stare unless he wanted to pick a fight.

Ludwig’s eyes flickered up from his paper for a moment to bore into Ascelin’s head. “No, no. He did not accuse _you_ of that.” Then he smirked, as if he knew something Ascelin didn’t, and muttered something about pots and kettles which irritated Ascelin on principle.

Ludwig pressed a new stack of papers towards Ascelin and resumed his businesslike tone. “Mark off any mention of the Harrowed named S. Bartholomew.”

“I hate that name.” Ascelin decided, taking the papers to scan for it.

“It is an alias.” Ludwig didn’t look up. “I doubt it was picked for anything more than aesthetic purposes.”

“It’s ugly. He has horrible taste.” Ascelin muttered: he was certain the man had styled himself. So far as Ascelin knew, Vicar Laurence was the mind behind the Harrowed, and he was incredibly melodramatic. He’d have named the guy after a character from a tragedy or something.

… wait. Were they allowed to use aliases for patrols? “Since when can we use false names on official paperwork?” Ascelin asked, glancing at him with brows arched.

“Only the Harrowed may.” Ludwig hummed, “The Vicar knows each of these men under their masks.”

Ascelin’s fingers stilled. “How?”

Ludwig glanced at him. “Promising new hunters are approached,” He said, a note of warning threading his voice. “The possibility that he picked poorly has been a source of considerable distress to the Vicar.” _Which is why we are dealing with it,_ went unspoken. 

Ascelin glanced at him and nodded, tucking the information away. He could evaluate its veracity later.

He made a note each time the despised name came up, and on which time-slots. “I did notice there were guards on the lanterns. What was- I mean, am I allowed to ask about that?” It would be helpful to know what he wasn’t allowed to know.

“We are treating your concerns with the utmost care.” Ludwig took the new note from Ascelin to compare to his own, and his eyes glittered. “Ah. I do believe we have our prey.” Grim satisfaction curled his mouth.

Ascelin touched another of the duty rosters. “Who’s going to hunt him?” He wondered, leaning his hip on the drawer. “I mean. I can’t keep the guy down. Not proud about that, but…” He waved a hand, “Already failed twice, and I think it’s safe to assume the Crow failed the third time.”

Ludwig considered their collection of work, lips thin. “I suppose I’ll consult with my superior regarding the assignment.”

Ascelin’s breath caught a moment at the potential of seeing something interesting. Ludwig might not run the Church, but the hunters all knew very well there was only one person in it he would answer to, and he had a considerable degree of freedom to move. So if he was _going_ to bother Laurence about it, Ascelin figured that meant Laurence really was invested in the outcome.

#

The next few hours were a little duller. Ascelin helped record, organize, and notarize the file against S. Bartholomew. He hummed through a few bars of a hymn while making sure the file cabinets were in order.

He even, to his personal delight, got a song stuck in Ludwig’s head, though the Head of the Church Hunters did not complain at all and was almost disgustingly amiable about the whole thing.

“What’s that tune?” Ludwig asked him, once Ascelin had moved on from the elf song, and into the one he was attempting to compose. Ascelin paused in the middle of it.

“A song for the Choir, Grace.” He slid the drawer shut and backed away before the files could leap out of order again, the way he was convinced they were all capable of.

“It’s not finished?” Ludwig tilted his head.

“There’s a snag in the middle I can’t work out.” Ascelin went back to the desk to see what else there was to do. It seemed all that was left was items regarding Vasilissa, and he wanted those in his greedy fingers yesterday. He reached for one the _moment_ Ludwig looked away.

“I’m afraid I care little for music.” Ludwig allotted, sealing the envelope of evidence with wax, “But it seems pleasing enough.” He glanced up and saw what Ascelin was doing, but did not scold him or try to take the papers out of his hands.

That was basically permission, right? Ascelin flipped through a series of short, bland updates requesting extensions for the leave of absence. They stopped about two weeks prior. So maybe the hold-up was recent…

“I don’t need it to be pleasing to anyone but the gods,” He said, half-focused on the paper. “And I don’t think I’m catching the right one’s ear with it yet.”

“You can’t know that.” Ludwig reasoned, “Actually I really must address… you think you’ve caught any god’s attention with a song? I cannot say if that’s incredible or concerning.”

“… it does… something,” Ascelin mumbled. Where had Vasilissa actually been?… he seriously doubted ‘the city two days' ride north’ was accurate… “When I sing it. I’m not sure what to say about that.”

“You must show me the result sometime, then. I would enjoy hearing it.” Ludwig said, in the way he did when he was trying to be friendly. Ascelin had heard him use the same voice on so many people so many times in almost two decades. Most people fell for it, not having seen what the man was capable of.

“Maybe later.” Ascelin demurred, because outright refusing his boss was unacceptably rude unless it was a matter of life and death. “But, uh, off-topic. This note is weird, I have it on good authority Vasya doesn’t _have_ family left.”

Ludwig examined him and reached over to tap another file on the desk top. “Besides her brother, you mean.”

_Ms. Vasilissa Volkovna - Church Hunter - Radiant Sword_

Equipment _: Sawspear, alt. Holy Blade; Cannon, alt. Blunderbuss. Modified Hunter garb, alt. masculine black church garb…_

Mostly things Ascelin knew already, but below that:

_Known family:_

_Vasily Volkov (father) Hunter — DDH 1880, Vasilissa reported_

_Mara Volkovna (mother) Civilian — D 1885_

_Vera Volkovna (sister) Cleric — D 1877_

_Anastas Volkov (brother) Undetermined —_

… Right. Of course the Church had a file like this. Of course they did. Except this wasn’t the public file, because _Ascelin had checked._

He really wasn’t thrilled with the idea that he was the last person to know the Volkovs had another child. It made him all itchy. He supposed Ludwig was digging around because one of ‘his’ Hunters had disappeared, but… Ascelin _hated_ when the man got curious. It was worse than Laurence getting curious, because the Vicar would needle you with things left unsaid, but Ludwig expected _answers_.

“… Yeah. Besides him. He’s here, not exactly pressing. So… where’d she go?” Ascelin stroked the page, and Ludwig hummed.

“Perhaps young Anastas might know?”

Ascelin grimaced and wondered exactly how far in Ludwig had dug. “That’s the thing.” He put the pages down. “I was hoping that, and I — I really don’t think he does.”

“… no? Well. More’s the pity.” Ludwig turned to walk across the workshop and stepped out onto the balcony. “You’ve questioned him about her disappearance, then?”

Ascelin’s claws twitched. He leaned in the doorway and looked down the walk for interlopers. “… yes. I spoke to him during the last Hunt. He was asking whether I'd seen his sister. Doesn’t know much of anything himself… He’s naïve, pretty biddable.”

Ludwig gave him a concerned look, and Ascelin pursed his lips. Was he not supposed to say things like that aloud?

“I would expect a child from a hunter family to know something.” Ludwig mused, eventually. “It is difficult for parents to lie to their children.” His eyes flickered and his lips thinned, like he'd recollected something unpleasant. “… Well, most parents. I certainly cannot stomach it.”

Ascelin thought of the cramped attic in the Volkov house, full of forbidden items, and drawled, “Vasilissa was pretty by the book, I thought. Maybe she didn’t want to tell him because there’s no chance of him following in her footsteps.”

Ludwig gave him another look, and Ascelin smiled back at him the way he’d perfected in Byrgenwerth.

“Hard to say, though.” Ascelin chanced looking away from the Holy Blade and out over the city. “Personally, mama always promised we could go back to Carim, and—” He waved a hand, as if to indicate his presence there in Yharnum. “You know. Sometimes you just can’t follow through.”

Ludwig said nothing to that, but he looked so sad that Ascelin wanted to laugh. “Come on, don’t look so down. It’s not like she meant to die before we could go… anyway, are you trying to tell me you don’t ever lie to your daughter? Not even well-meaning ones?”

Ludwig’s eyes flickered. The displeased look came and went again. “If I cannot tell her something, I say so honestly. Lies breed mistrust.”

Ascelin mulled that over. “Yeah. Suppose it’s probably a good thing I don’t have kids.”

Ludwig turned his face away. “It’s difficult to raise a child with a job like this.”

No kidding. Ascelin leaned on the railing. “I suppose the children of Hunters are usually a bit inept for want of supervision?”

Ludwig grunted. “Were Ame only inept.” The man mumbled, and scrubbed a hand over his face.

Ascelin glanced over, tried not to smile. “She’s a handful, then?” Well, she had been every time he’d met her, but that might have had to do with the fact that Ascelin rubbed her wrong.

Ludwig nodded. “Very… very energetic. Not so bad as she used to be. But. Seventeen is an interesting age.”

Ascelin blinked. Was it? “I was sitting exams at seventeen.”

“I assure you, that is not the standard here. Instead, seventeen sees a good deal of marriage proposals.”

That was an interesting thought. Ascelin vaguely recollected people in the village he was from usually being married by then, but… well, it was different in the woods.

Also the idea of Ludwig’s daughter wedding anyone was kind of funny. They’d have to deal with the next in line to even see her… “Isn’t she going into the church? She keeps telling me she’s going to be my superior.”

“Yes- she what now.” Ludwig turned to give him a startled look.

Ascelin shrugged. “It’s amusing. She seems to think my behavior will change when she has power.” Well, maybe if she had him beat, he’d _consider_ mouthing off less. But there were other ways of making yourself a thorn to people, for example running off to serve their enemies.

Ludwig frowned at him, which was — honestly par for the course. 

(It was a little uncomfortable that Ascelin hadn’t managed to get more than a frown or a sharp word since he’d become a hunter, because… he had _no_ idea what was going to happen when Ludwig finally did show his temper. Ascelin had nothing to measure against and the list of items to avoid were almost painfully obvious: don’t hurt his daughter, don't threaten his Vicar, and don't be cruel to his horse. When the moment came that he did find some pitfall, it was going to take Ascelin entirely by surprise.) 

Ludwig took out a notebook and a worn-looking pen. “I am going to send a message to Laurence, and perhaps made a trip north of the Cathedral. Would you be interested in accompanying me?”

Ascelin paused. Being seen willingly going anywhere with Ludwig could cause him more problems than it would solve. 

Ludwig’s lips twitched, and he narrowed his eyes at his own writing. “Hmm. Well, if you don’t want to… Say, how is Conductor Xenia doing?”

For a moment, Ascelin thought he felt blood down his back. But it was only phantom sensations. His voice sounded flat and faraway when he answered: “Fine. The Maestra is fine.”

Ludwig nodded. He folded up his note and turned away to summon a messenger. “Is there a particular reason you prefer reporting to me, instead of her?” He asked, pleasantly neutral like they were discussing the weather. It was a strange question; Ascelin had been reporting to the Workshop when he could get away with it for years. 

“Nothing in particular.” Ascelin took a step away from the desk. “I suppose you’re more attentive.”

Ludwig spared a look up for that. His eyes crinkled at the edges with false friendliness. “Goodness. When you say things like that I could almost mistake you for enjoying my company, Carim.” … He didn’t sound accusing, the way the Vicar would have. He just sounded like he was outlining the properties of a weapon.

Ascelin shrugged. “… There a reason this is coming up tonight, Captain? It ain’t really news that I don’t like you. Any of you.”

Ludwig cast him another look, this time contemplative. It made Ascelin’s skin itch.

“Tonight, no. Maybe later.” Ludwig drummed his fingers on the desk. “… at any rate. Perhaps you could patrol awhile and meet me back here, in an hour or two.”

#

Nearing moon-set, Ascelin drifted back towards the center of the ward. He took a meandering path that the horse-bound hunters couldn't, and killed whatever he found afflicted — rats, dogs, a few unfortunate townsman. One of them managed to snag his bun and pull his hair half loose — that poor bastard did not enjoy a swift death. Ascelin tried to fix his hair a moment, then cursed and undid the tie entirely, and brushed his hair over his shoulder instead. Fine. It was fine. 

He stopped at a few red lanterns to try and pick up some information, but there wasn’t much he hadn’t already heard, so… that was a bust. Ascelin dragged the bodies to the street where they could be gathered to burn at dawn, dismembered a few for useful parts as he found them. He watched the lanterns, and he kept out an eye for beggars.

Oedon Chapel was always open, with incense burning at every doorway to ward off undesirable visitors. The smell made Ascelin’s nose twitch. It was repellent to beasts, but the sharp odour could be equally unpleasant to anyone with an enhanced sense of smell.

On the bridge to the workshop he paused a moment to breathe, aware that Ludwig should have beaten him back and there was a possibility (faint, but present) that Ascelin was walking into a trap for reasons he could not yet guess at.

If that happened, his best bet was probably distance — maybe bolting from the door and across the bridge. But that would give Ludwig a clear shot with his rifle, or his arcane attacks, and Ascelin usually preferred a wide area where he could circle the man until Ludwig’s stamina was exhausted-

Ascelin wiped at the blood on his clothes and sighed. The chances of being shot at were really very low, and he’d had to fight Ludwig every year for his Radiant Sword reexamination, and… truthfully the idea induced less discomfort than the alternative; that was to say, Ludwig trying to talk to him like he didn’t have Ascelin’s life in his hands.

He crossed the bridge. Closer to the door he could hear the inaudible murmur of someone absorbed in their work: shuffling papers, a pen scratching, and half-sung words from a distracted throat.

“… _I love the sensual._

_For me this_

_and love for the sun_

_has a share in brilliance, and beauty…”_

Ludwig had his back to the door, like he wasn’t even a little afraid of what might walk in during his inattention. Ascelin looked at the broad target left unguarded and thought, without intention, whether there was a weakness to be exploited in the armor and the Prospector robes. Probably the trick form of his weapon would be better, if he were to try—

Ludwig’s voice rolled out, rumbling and pleasant, with some undertone that warned Ascelin off the path his thoughts had wandered down. “Not falling to bloodlust now, are we?”

“No. No, I'm only as truculent as usual.” Ascelin walked forward, til he was almost at Ludwig’s shoulder. 

“I would hate to lose another blade so soon.” Ludwig glanced at him, “Please take care to tether yourself.”

“Sure.” Ascelin said, not really sure what there was to be done for it, “I’ll make sure to do that.” He looked at Ludwig’s current work: the shift roster for the next Hunt. The file they’d been working on was sitting beside it unopened. “I haven’t seen the Vicar.”

Ludwig’s hands went still, and a frown twisted his lips. “I had been hoping my poor luck was a fluke. Hmm, where could he be?… I can’t imagine he’s actually sleeping…”

“Where are his guards?” Ascelin asked.

Ludwig gave him a severe look, lips pressed thin, and his eyes narrowed to slits.

Ascelin put his hands up. “Ah, it's like that, I get it. Okay.” He shrugged, crossed his arms and leaned his hip on the desk. “No sign of S. Bartholomew, either.”

“If he is alive, and he has any sense, he will-” Ludwig turned to face Ascelin, then paused and furrowed his brow. “… Carim. Why is your hair loose?”

Ascelin blinked. “Uh. No reason.” He pushed a lock back behind his ear, and Ludwig gave him a knowing look that was even more annoying for being entirely off-base. 

“Hunter Carim. While I understand that a man your age has certain desires, I would remind you that the night is not the time to pursue them — at least not a night that you are working.”

Ascelin made a face and dropped the pretense of innocence entirely. “I might’ve been flirting for information, okay, can you make it sound less like I was trying to fu-”

Belatedly — at least in part due to the _Look_ he was getting from the head of the Church Hunters — Ascelin reconsidered the vulgarity. Well. Sort of. He made an impatient gesture and code-switched, “Je n’essayais de baiser personne! Better?”

Ludwig turned an interesting color. So. Probably not ‘better’, no. Ascelin put his hands on his hips and stared back at him anyway, based on an arbitrary decision that _this_ was a good hill to die on.

The wind picked up outside; it carried in the scent of blood. Ludwig’s pupils expanded. Ascelin narrowed his eyes because his were doing the same, and it made the candlelight seem brighter until it verged on painful. They turned to look out of the door.

The indistinct form of someone a little smaller than Ascelin was on the bridge. They stepped into the pool of light spilling out of the doorway, and — well. That certainly did explain the smell. A cleric wearing the remnant’s of a nun’s white set stood in front of them, so soaked in blood as to be dripping with it. It smelled sickly, and it was almost the color of tar, with a grisly trail speckling the ground behind them. They had a threaded cane slung over their back, along with a piercing rifle, and — their hands were occupied with a massive glittering rock. The cleric raised their head and turned ember-light eyes on Ascelin, which was the uncomfortable moment when Ascelin realized he was facing down the Vicar.

Judging by movement, Laurence was uninjured. He curled his lip and jerked his head toward Ascelin.

“ _You_. Putain de ne pas parler comme ça dans l’atelier de Ludwig.”

As far as challenges went, it was — a pretty tame one, at least from someone coming off a kill. Even the mildest hunters could be volatile while the blood was hot.

Ascelin stepped back anyway. 

“Both of you, _please_ stop cursing.” Ludwig looked unusually pale. “Laurence, where on earth have you been? I couldn’t find you at all.”

Laurence shrugged and held the boulder towards the head of the Church Hunters, like he expected Ludwig to take it from him. “The gods don't care so long as it’s en François. Ah… were you looking for me? Apologies.”

“Mais, was the same in Carim, mama said.” Ascelin eyed the chunk. “This why you weren’t answering notes, Vicar?” He wondered what had the man agitated enough to go on an illicit outing.

“I wanted to stretch my legs.” Laurence responded daintily, like he’d slipped his honor guard and threw on women’s robes for an afternoon stroll. “I brought you a gift, Ludwig.”

Ludwig stared at the boulder. “You brought me a geode?”

Ascelin was relieved to note that the Holy Blade seemed as confused by it as Ascelin was. Where had Laurence even happened on the specimen? It looked like something one could only find deep underground…

“I thank you, Laurence, that is very kind.…?” Ludwig took the boulder, and made a face at the weight, bouncing it a little in his hands. His lips formed a soundless ‘why’. “Is this… wait.” Ludwig walked over to the workbench to pick up a magnifying tool to examine the Vicar’s gift. From the look creeping onto his face, it was something impressive, although maybe not in a good way. Maybe… more in a ‘wow, I can’t believe you ran through that long, intricately trapped corridor and came out unscathed’ way.

Laurence tilted his head back to watch Ludwig’s inspection. Ascelin wondered if the Vicar wandered through a charnel house during peak business, and whether both of his supervisors weren’t distracted enough for him to just bolt.

“Yes, you’re welcome.” Laurence examined the rock, and then Ludwig, with visible satisfaction. “Now why were you looking for me? Did you make progress on something?”

Ascelin took the envelope from the desk to hold out. “This.”

Laurence’s eyes lit up. He reached for it with his bloody fingers, and Ascelin belatedly realized that offering the Vicar anything while he was on a hunting high would probably destroy several hours’ work. Accordingly, he drew it back towards his own clean robes. “Sir? You’re — sticky.”

Laurence gave him an impatient look. “Thank you for that astute observation, Carim. I am so happy to have minds such as yours staffing the Choir.”

“I have noted your hurtful and unnecessary critique, Vicar.” Ascelin smiled and tightened his grip. 

Ludwig tried to defend their work, to his credit. “Laurence, please, you look like you crawled out of-” He started, stopped, made himself take a breath and smile pleasantly. When he spoke, one could be forgiven for not realizing that a moment before, Ludwig had sounded frustrated… Ascelin envied the control necessary for that sort of switch. “It’s nearly dawn. Don’t you think it'll keep another hour or two?”

“No.” Laurence turned his stare on Ludwig. “I think I'll handle it tonight. You know my feelings on the matter.”

Ludwig’s eyes flashed. “Yes, I think you’ve made them eminently clear. Still. The mess.”

Ascelin put the file back on the schedule desk and backed off. “May I be excused?” He asked, having decided to go either way.

Ludwig barely looked at him, which was nice. He still had a hand on the dark red geode the Vicar had delivered him. “Please patrol the alleys of the central ward until dawn. I have more to discuss with you.”

Eugh. “Yes, Holy Blade.”

Ludwig nodded, not taking his gaze off of Laurence, and snagged the file from the desk in his free hand before Laurence could reach for it. Laurence twitched. 

When Ludwig spoke again it was to address the Vicar, and not Ascelin. “At least let me read it to you so you don’t get blood all over the notes?”

“Most of this is dry.” Laurence turned his nose up, “And you read so evenly I might doze off. I’ve never known you to be skittish, why don’t you just hand it to me-?”

Ascelin backed outside, then hesitated on the balcony. It wasn’t hard to eavesdrop even from outside of the workshop, at least while no one was around, and the two of them weren’t exactly _quiet._

“Laurence, I am watching you _drip_ and that file took hours of work to put together-”

“Mm. I suppose if we need it for something after the matter is dealt with.”

“Yes, we _need it_ , we can’t just dispose of our own in dark alleyways when they become inconvenient…”

“I mean.” The Vicar said, too contemplative for comfort, “We _are_ perfectly capable of-”

Ludwig didn’t bother disguising his annoyance this time. “I misspoke: we _will not_. Laurence, you are better than this, this is not like Aust-”

Ascelin hummed to himself and decided either it would devolve into a real argument — not something he wanted to be present for — or they’d calm down and go back to being all… themselves, which was dangerous for different reasons, like Laurence getting pissy and trying to dismember him.

Ascelin headed back into the ward, only stopping to wiggle his fingers at the indistinct shape atop one distant chapel.

He patrolled until dawn kissed the sky.

He _did_ briefly veer off course to visit the Servant’s Ward. Just long enough to check in on a certain house. There was a pair of mud-caked boots by the stoop, and inside he could hear warm conversation and three distinct voices. So that was good — everything was where he needed it to be. Then he went home and he slept a few hours, because he was sure he would need it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **I messed up the death dates _so badly._  
>  *I forgot to note loose translations. Okay!  
> Mais is an exclamation of surprise in Cajun French.  
> Merdasse means shit  
> The codeswitching was meant to say something along the lines of "I wasn't trying to (kiss)" anyone, except he used baiser, which can mean 'fuck' and was almost certainly where Ascelin was going with it.  
> Laurence tells him "don't fucking talk like that in Ludwig's workshop"  
> And I used 'en francois' because 'en astoran' read weirdly to me.
> 
> I would like to comment on the fact that Ascelin calls Laurence dramatic, while naming his snake experiment "Circe", for anyone who missed that glaring bit of hypocrisy.
> 
> I don't speak French and used a mix of French phrases from websites and Google Translate wherever it came up. I apologize because I definitely messed things up with this method :'D corrections welcome, same for the Cajun French. (Incidentally Ascelin uses a few French curses but it's perfectly viable he picked them up from Laurence, who is a foul-mouthed gremlin)
> 
> Okay soooo originally Ludwig was singing a Victorian folk song I found but it got changed to one of the remaining fragments of Sappho's poetry for continuity reasons with a side story. I actually found Sappho (I'd never heard of her) while looking at flowers representing homosexuality for a different multichapter fic I'm working on called "The Vicar's Knight" and I really like what work of hers is left, to the point that it ended up sneaking into a bunch of the background stuff for Choral. So it's gonna keep showing up.
> 
> My favorite thing about this chapter is the fact that Ludwig spends a bunch of it trolling Ascelin and Ascelin notices on some level, but also Ascelin is a paranoid lunatic and can't actually *prove* what's going on.  
> Ludwig doesn't generally terrorize his hunters, but Ascelin has enough traits in common with Laurence-during-Byrgenwerth that it becomes sort of funny to prod him.  
> Also part of the reason this chapter *took so long* was because Laurence kept making the last scene more comedic than anything, just... he's really unintentionally funny while half-feral. Or I think. Ludwig doesn't, but you know, he has to deal with the man.
> 
> I also had to cut a plot thing I was trying to work in here because it didn't work for the story overall, and the only remnant of that is Ascelin's hair being loose and Ludwig being Concerned About It.
> 
> By the way, I've been posting sketches and updates on my twitter: https://twitter.com/rococospade


	12. Follow Through

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anastas gets a break, and a lesson on guns. Ascelin does not get a break, and deals with a Morton's Fork.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI big big trigger warnings for the second half of this chapter, from Ascelin's section onward it is Bad Times. TW for: child abuse and death (off-screen and sort-of onscreen), desecration of a corpse, unethical experimentation, body horror, character experiencing PTSD symptoms, homicidal ideation, a character suffering from disorientation, and intentional self-injury (to pay a shop tab). I think that's everything? Like, the Choir is in full swing. Please let me know if you need more details than that. 
> 
> I updated the fic tags for this chapter and it basically doubled the count... oops my bad.
> 
> Thanks to MissMonie for beta reading and feedback!

The first rule was that the gunpowder couldn’t be wet.

“The Evelyn is a flintlock,” Drogomir explained, “Not a percussion cap. So you need a spark to ignite it - and if your gunpowder gets too damp, you’re finished.” He eyed the weapon with a frown. “The workshop offers a powder that smokes less, and will catch even in unfavourable conditions… but you aren’t a hunter, so there’s no way for you to get hold of it.”

“Okay.” Anastas carefully dissembled the gun, piece by piece. He had to stop often and think about what he was doing - the tools were tiny, mostly foreign to him, and there were many delicate-looking parts. He spread them out roughly where they had come from, like the Evelyn had just - exploded open, the same way Drogomir had him do the night before.

The second rule was to keep an edge on the flint, so Anastas examined it carefully.

If there wasn’t a good edge, the gun wouldn’t spark, the powder wouldn't catch, and — “You’re dead,” Drogomir noted, “When you need the gun and it won’t fire. A percussion cap _pistolet_ would be easier on you. Safer, less effort to keep her in working condition.”

Anastas ran his fingers over the embossed metal. “This one is beautiful.” He said, examining the design: baroque flowers. “If the other is easier — what makes this worthwhile?”

Drogomir gave the pieces a serious look. “That one? Carnage.”

Anastas’s hand faltered. “What do you mean?”

“This is a gun designed to draw as much blood as possible.” Drogomir nodded to it. “Her bullets don’t fly far, but they’ll do a lot of damage within their range — see the shape of the round, like a little cannonball? They don’t compress on impact, like the bullets for my gun. They break apart in the wound. If you strike a bone with them - well. That limb is destroyed.”

Anastas considered the pistol on the ground, for the first time since it had been foisted on him, as something other than an eccentric art piece. “It could kill someone even if I don’t shoot for the heart or the head.”

“ _Da, konechno_.” Drogomir leaned back. “If you're really bent on going around armed, a blunderbuss might suit you better. The spray is wide-”

“Then that’s a poor option.” Anastas said, thinking of how many other people were in the city. “I don't want to hurt someone by mistake.”

Drogomir eyed the gun on the floor. “Then you're best off unarmed, Anya. Anyone can make mistakes.” 

Anastas continued his careful disassembly, and cleaned each part - not because it needed it, but because his fingers needed to learn. The awareness of what he needed to do — of the key hanging around his neck like a millstone — wore at him, nagging and nagging until he managed to summon the right words to his tongue. “I need to go to the woods.” He admitted, for the first time aloud, and let his gaze stray to Drogomir’s face.

The man’s expression was cold and hard, with eyes narrow and lips thin and his jaw firm. He was not happy, Anastas supposed — why would he be?

But Anastas couldn’t stay put when there was an actual lead for him to follow. “They’re dangerous, aren’t they? The places outside the city.”

“That is putting it lightly.” Drogomir frowned, “Why would you want to go at all? There are snakes in that forest. Beasts, too. To even go to Byrgenwerth, you would need an escort.”

“So you’d agree that going unarmed would be suicide.” Anastas picked up the flint to adjust it in the cock’s jaw.

“I would argue that going at all is suicide — ah, flip the bevel side down. That’s an old flint. The bevel is up only on new ones, I will fetch another.” Drogomir got up and went to the desk of his study. “The woods are not a place for civilians right now.”

Anastas’s fingers tightened on the pistol. “Then I’ll learn to shoot, because I have to go.” The coordinates were for… somewhere outside the city, and he felt safe presuming they weren’t in the ocean. That left the woods.

“That’s not an undertaking to be had in a day, lyubimoi… At least, will you tell me why you’re set on this path?” Drogo came back with a new, sharp flint to compare to the one in the Eveyln. He showed Anastas how to angle the both of them for a consistent catch. 

… telling him would require trusting Drogomir. Anastas chewed his lip, and nodded to the gun parts with a look of consternation. “How do you know how to do this?” 

Drogomir shrugged and let go of his own question, or appeared to. “My mother taught us to shoot with these. She said, if you can hit a snipe with a flintlock, you can hit anything.… eh, mind, I’m not so good a shot as that. I use the Stake Driver or a Piercing Rifle, and hope for the best.” He crouched on the floor across from Anastas. “Let’s see you reassemble her, then.”

Anastas nodded and set to work. If he could take care of the weapon, and learn to fire it — bullets were pretty cheap. He thought he could afford to buy a few boxes before he left.

“A good gun is like your wife,” Drogomir interjected, breaking Anastas’s concentration. “If you take good care of her, she’ll take care of you.”

Anastas hesitated over the last piece to stare at him. “Drogomir… _what_.”

“I am being serious right now.” Drogomir said, grim-faced. “If you are bent on this, that gun will have to be part of you. And I worry about how you care for yourself.”

Anastas averted his gaze. He bit his lip, unable to argue. 

“If you can take care of this, and yourself.” Drogomir continued, “I will consider your argument. But as it is- you cannot go to the woods anyway.”

Anastas twitched. The little peace he’d reclaimed for himself crashed down around him. “What?”

Drogomir nodded. He did not look happy to be the deliverer of this news, and that soothed Anastas a little. At least this did not seem like sabotage. “Since the increase in cases, civilians may only leave or enter the Ward on sanctioned business.”

Anastas stared. “But… how would I even…” He felt like he was trying to climb out of a mossy old well, and every time he made a little progress he’d slip and land back at the bottom.

Drogomir patted Anya’s shoulder, then stood up with a grunt. “Think of it as time to prepare. You can’t go running off half-cocked, so- don’t. Learn to handle the Evelyn, learn to shoot. Get yourself healthy.”

Anastas’s veins itched. “Yes,” he whispered, with no proper direction in mind, and another headache blooming behind his temples, “I suppose I have to. Where could I learn to shoot?”

Drogomir looked relieved, and managed a brief smile. “There’s a range the huntsman use. No one should ask too many questions if I take you… We can go down tomorrow, if you like.”

#

Half an hour ago, Drogomir had showed him how to dismantle the Evelyn for cleaning and then how to put her back together. He promised to do the same again the next day, then had nudged Anastas off to the guest room — a narrow closet with a soft bed and clean linens, and one little oil lamp on the carved wood nightstand that Anastas tried not to eye in unease.

When his host left, Anastas put the lamp on as low as he could, and curled up on the bed to read.

_An oil lantern fell into a hay pile, catching it alight, and sent the stables up in flame._

_While this happened the very earth shook — and an impurity in the cliff side, heretofore unnoticed, plunged the Lecture Hall off the mountain and into the ocean. Even the ground where it remained is long lost…_

Anastas turned the page, biting his lip. The book he’d stolen (well. Borrowed. He meant to return it!) was a historical account, and he — wasn’t sure what to take from it.

Mensis was a once-prominent, now-deceased, school of scholars. Anastas could not discern anything urgent about them, let alone something that should keep his sister away a month without so much as a letter.

He finished the book with the fervor of the desperate, then laid it shut on the nightstand. His head hurt, but he couldn't speak to whether that was from the words or the hour or the withdrawal. He put out the lamp.

Anastas tried to sleep. He dreamed of a building crashing into the ocean where it was swallowed whole, and of a dark looming forest full of watchful eyes embedded in the bark of the trees, and no matter how far he walked in it they followed him.

#

Something was bleeding. Anastas inhaled deeply, opened an eye, and peered around for the source. His head still hurt, but it was not so bad as the night before. Full night cloaked the room, with only a little sliver of moonlight streaming in the window to see by. He could pick out the shape of the nightstand with his flint, his dagger, and the stolen book atop it. He scanned further; the room seemed empty, but… the doorway. At the bottom he thought he saw something a little darker than it should have been.

He watched it, crept his hand toward the nightstand, and tried to breathe. His heart was probably racing, but it felt sluggish - like his fingers reaching for the knife, like his breathing while he pretended he was still asleep. His fingers wrapped around the handle of the dagger, and faintly shook, but lifted it up. It brushed the book, and he flinched at the little noise it made, but the boots — he was certain now they were boots — didn’t move.

“Anya?” A low voice called from the other side of the door.

Anastas froze, staring at the wood, _caught caught caught—_ before he placed the voice and went lax.

It was Drogomir. Of course it was — Anastas was sleeping in the guest room of his house. So why did he smell blood?

“Anastas, are you awake?” Drogomir called. “Bedelia is leaving to work at the Laundry Pool today. I thought you would like to eat with us before she goes?”

Anastas made himself sit up, stiff-limbed and trembling. “Thank you. That would be very nice.” He scratched at the inside of his arm and curled up, shivering without the blanket, and with the adrenaline coursing out of him.

He dressed himself quickly, washed his face in the little basin by the window, and went out to join his hosts. The little knife from his mother he took and carefully tucked it into his boot. He didn’t think he would need it, of course. But having it made him feel a little better.

… Before he left the room. He looked out of the window, just to see.

A person in a dark cloak was working in the alley below, on what he couldn’t exactly see, but it glimmered wetly in the scarce light. They glanced up, spotted Anastas, and tipped their hat. Anastas nodded back. Then he moved away from the window, let the curtain fall shut, and pushed a hand to his chest until his heart would slow down again. 

_It’s only a hunter. Hunters protect you._

Of course, he knew that wasn’t always true now, so the lie didn’t help. It took him a while before he could make himself leave the small bedroom.

#

In the kitchen Bedelia and Drogomir were waiting. Drogomir pulled a chair out for Anastas and indicated he sit, then went to settle in beside his wife. 

Bedelia grasped her husband’s hand and drew it over to kiss the knuckles, and inclined her head to Anastas. Anastas averted his gaze from the affection, face hot, and only sat down when he was sure they would not do anything else. 

Bedelia had a steaming cup of tea, and three plates of eggs and thick ham on the table with bread and jars of preserves. Anastas stared at it.

“Go ahead and eat, dear. Did you want a cup yourself?” Bedelia held up her teacup.

Anastas blinked. “Not… not right now,” He said, thinking of his racing pulse, “But. Thank you for your hospitality. You’ll let me do the washing up?”

Bedelia stared a moment, eyes narrow like she was searching him for something. “I was going to make Drogo do it.” She admitted, “But if you’ve nothing to study you may, I suppose.”

Anastas bowed his head. “Yes ma’am.”

“Bedelia is fine, dear.” Bedelia said, turning to eat her food.

Anastas made a face at her. “You won’t call me by Anastas.”

“Of course not, master Volkov. That would be the height of rudeness. Eat your eggs.”

Anastas made another face and looked at Drogomir, who shrugged. “She called me ‘knave’ for the first month of my knowing her. To be frank, I do not know why she stopped.”

“With friends like yours, love, who could blame me for assuming.” Bedelia took another bite.

Drogomir shrugged again, as if he were happy as not to leave the matter be. “After the meal and the washing, you can show me what you remember about the Evelyn.”

Cheered a little by this prospect, Anastas ate his meal. It wouldn’t have been a hardship in any case — Bedelia’s cooking was very good, and Anastas hadn’t been eating right for ages. He didn’t complain about her taking his plate away and coming back with seconds, either.

“Maybe at this rate you will grow some.” Drogomir hoped.

Anastas stared at his plate. “… that would be nice.” He admitted, slathering apricot jam on a thick slice of bread. “If I could even come up to your shoulder, I’d be ecstatic.”

Drogomir snorted with laughter. “Maybe you could aim to be as tall as an average man?”

“I don’t want to ask too much.” Anastas demurred. “Then I might get nothing, to teach me a lesson.”

Drogomir snorted again. “Maybe that’s where all my height came from. My brothers were being punished for asking too much?”

Bedelia made a noise behind her teacup. “Are you admitting to taking from your brothers, Mira-love?”

“Ehh. No? I would never?”

“Hmm.” She got up to put her dirty dishes by the basin. “I’m off to work, dears. Master Volkov, don’t let Drogo tease you overmuch. You’re allowed to scold him.”

Anastas eyed Drogomir, who looked like he would respond to any scoldings by laughing himself sick, or possibly scruffing Anastas like an errant puppy. “I definitely will. Thank you for the meal, Ms. Bedelia. Have a good day at work.”

#

When Ascelin woke up it was a little bit after noon. The sun was aggressively bright, and his experiment had put itself back in the box, probably for the same reason Ascelin was shielding his face with a pillow. Two messengers were hovering by his bedside, waving notes and making increasingly needy noises now that they realized he was conscious.

He rolled off the bed with a grunt and took the first to read.

_The Conductor would like to speak with you._

Ascelin snorted _,_ “Fuck that.” And crumbled the note, then discarded it in favor of the other.

_I expect an explanation. - Д_

Well. He couldn't lie and say that one surprised him. He got off the floor and headed for the bathing-room the little apartment kept. It was not private, but the stalls had walls that let one pretend so they could scrub off in peace.

#

After he’d washed properly, Ascelin penned a note to send back to Drogomir.

_Need to see Conductor. Join you when I can. - A_

He dressed himself, grabbed some knives from his storage chest, and headed out into the Upper Cathedral Ward.

The orphanage was in poor spirits when he arrived, even for its usual pallor. No one would look at him, and the Sisters either would not meet his eyes, or did so with such flagrant distaste and challenge that Ascelin wondered what he was walking into. 

The Altar of Despair was a little more peaceful. He could hear the wet noises of Ebrietus somewhere in its far reaches, but he did not seek her out. He was not here for communion or worship.

The Conductor was standing with her back to him just beyond the elevator, an echo of a scene he’d lived and died in once before.

(Sometimes he wondered what the Choir was like before she came into power. An older member had told Ascelin that the Vicar had run it once. He wondered about that: had it been better under Laurence, or worse?)

Xenia’s voice echoed strangely in the chamber, twisted his name into something repugnant. “Ascelin.” 

(Of course. Maybe it was just that he hated her voice, and the poor cavern had nothing at all to do with it.)

Xenia’s hands were clasped behind her, weaponless for the moment.

Ascelin felt a prickle along his neck, and a wave of revulsion that he had to force down before he could speak. “Conductor. You sent for me, Maestra?”

“I can’t say I expected you to be prompt.” Xenia’s voice had an undercurrent of pleasure that made Ascelin’s claws itch for blood. “You’ve been giving all your reports directly to the Captain and the Vicar… It’s enough to make a woman feel as if she’s being shunned.” She turned a little to glance at him over one shoulder, from under loose strands of pale hair. He wondered if that was a sign she was opposed to violence today. “Don’t you want to be a member of this Choir, my darling little bird?” Xenia smiled at her own awful joke, then turned her face away again.

Ascelin’s lip curled back off of his teeth. “That’s a very hurtful accusation, Maestra. Mais. I’m shocked.” He imagined holding her under the water by fistfuls of her loose hair, until she stopped breathing and went still forever. The revulsion and the prickling dislike didn’t abate, and he didn’t feel better. But he clung to the image, anyway.

Xenia’s shoulder twitched, and again she turned a cold violet eye on him. “… Excuse me. _What_ did you say?”

Ascelin widened his eyes. “I’m shocked?”

“ _Before that,_ Ascelin.”

Ascelin’s gaze flickered. “Ah. Mais?”

Xenia’s look of disgust reappeared. “… you aren’t a swamp rat any longer, Ascelin.” She drew the words out, “Do not _speak_ like one in my presence.”

Ascelin bowed his head lower, pleased to have needled her. “It slipped my attention, Maestra. I am deeply sorry.”

Xenia turned to face him, which was a fairly dangerous proposition. Ascelin froze mid-bow and played the old game where he tried to figure out how to cower best. 

“I did not call you here to lecture you about your presentation,” Xenia said, and stepped closer, so he could see the pristine toe of her overpriced shoe. “You are overdue for a report.”

Ascelin had just given one to the Vicar, but he supposed the man saw no reason to share that with subordinates. Or perhaps he thought Ascelin actually reported to his Conductor as required.

… well. Knowing the Vicar, it might well be something like ‘if Xenia can’t corner you to get progress reports, that’s her failure’, actually. Ascelin got a truly incredible amount of leeway granted to him by that tenuous logic.

(Of course the reverse was that if Laurence wanted a report, he was as liable as not to appear from a dark alley and grab Ascelin for avoiding him… which was not good for anyone’s blood pressure. Nothing like trying to impale the Vicar, and getting tossed off a bridge for your efforts.)

“My progress has been modest, lady Xenia.” Ascelin intoned. “It struggles with even basic reconstruction of damaged tissue. However, I believe that by adjusting the tonal resonance, I might reach a breakthrough.”

This was not entirely accurate. The process didn’t struggle with reconstruction, but rather at not… remaking whatever it was meant to fix into something entirely new. But he figured the distinction would probably be lost here. Xenia’s field of expertise ran more in the vein of recycling than it did the reconstructive. She might not see the problem with Ascelin’s work not, ah, going as _intended,_ coming from such a background.

Xenia brushed her bangs back from her face, and asked, “Have you tested it on a human subject?” While combing out locks of hair with her fingers. 

Ascelin stared at her gloves, and thought about drowning. His breath caught. “Ah. Not yet.” He’d considered going to ask for cadavers, but he hadn’t actually done it. He’d been busy, and anyway, he still had no idea what would happen to Circe over time. He wanted more data before he moved onto larger tests and scarcer resources.

… of course, if Xenia was volunteering him something, it didn’t matter what he wanted. She would get her way. (Not that it was impossible to deprive her of things. But… one would be wise to choose their battles.)

(Ascelin wasn’t very wise. But he _was_ capable of learning.)

Xenia clasped her hands and hummed, eyes glittering. “So a demonstration would be a lovely opportunity for you… Wonderful.”

Yes. Fantastic. Ascelin’s claws twitched.

#

Near the Altar of Despair, someone had laid out a body. It was young, maybe twelve, with a soft round face and little fingers tinged dark blue. The eyes are discoloured from sun exposure — the lips are parted in a soundless scream — there’s blood crusted around the nostrils.

The ribs are a mottled collection of bruises, more damaged skin than unmarred. Ascelin ran his hand over the crown of the head, brushed stiff hair from its face, and averted his gaze from its nudity. There wasn’t much else to be done.

“Well?” Xenia prompted somewhere behind him. “Are you going to do it or not?”

Ascelin stalled, thinking of his previous subjects. “Let me warm up my throat, Maestra.” He didn't want this to go any worse than necessary. A missed note would be — unfortunate.

Xenia stared at him. “You need to _sing_ for it?”

Ascelin gave her a look, the sort of which you give to someone who’s been taking your research reports for months but evidently not reading or retaining anything _from_ them. “The Choir are all capable of singing, Maestra. I am sure the method will not be a detriment to our use.”

Xenia’s smile twitched. “Watch your tone.”

Ascelin inclined his head. “Apologies.” He murmured, then hummed to himself. He took another look at the damage, moved from humming to singing scales at low volume.

The composition wasn’t finished; it nagged at him that he had to sing it anyway. It was a small resentment in a pile of them, and he was used to swallowing bile, so he pressed it down and sang a note.

Ascelin raised his voice, felt the moment the chords _caught_ and thrummed in the air, and turned into something more substantial than song and fleeting pain and longing. ( _This doesn’t hurt and neither do you anymore if you just hush if you just stay_ _ **away**_ _—)_

The sunlight shimmered out of existence for just a moment, and the cosmos yawned around them like they’d snagged open a hole in the veil of existence.

Phosphorescent particles glimmered and raced down, little falling stars, and rushed into the body. Whispers wreathed the hall, wet breathing and sticky sounds and if he just concentrated there was almost something sensible in the sibilant orchestra, _we can fix this we can make this better we can_ -

The eyes glowed with light, and blood burbled on the lips of the corpse. Its ribcage juddered, and it sucked in air.

Ascelin stared at it, kept singing the song, and felt a hook in his gut. Thought, _No. This is wrong. This is a mistake._

He thought, I _have to finish._ Kept singing. What else was he supposed to do besides finish? He couldn’t feel dread, but there was a sense of wrongness, the idea that if he did not complete the music then the void would demand more of him than a mere song. 

The body sat up and clutched at its abdomen. The flesh forced itself back out into shape; the bruises faded away. The skin stayed sallow, and the dark mottled places — keratinous tissue faded into existence on the ribs and spread from there. The nails, black with blood, lengthened. The body opened its mouth and _breathed_ , and Ascelin watched its gums grow soft and loose til the teeth dropped out and splashed into the water, blood spreading off them.

_Keep singing._

(Not quite the effect he was going for. Waste of a subject. Desecration, honestly.)

The corpse struggled to its feet. It turned blazing eyes on them which faintly smoked with light, its motions twitchy and uncoordinated, and let out a hiss from its gumless mouth.

Ascelin finished the song, and felt all of the air leave him. He hit the floor and breathed, cold water seeping through his robes. On the edge of his awareness, Xenia was seething, her voice like a whipcrack: “What on earth is that? What did you do to sabotage it?”

Ascelin raised his head, and watched what he’d helped make. The luminous ruined eyes, which had been burning into him, turned on the Conductor. The corpse bristled, brought up hands hooked into claws, and Ascelin wondered whether it remembered.

If it could talk he would ask it, but he didn’t… have high hopes. 

“I told you. It’s incomplete.” He said, observing the reanimate. Its attempts to walk were somewhat-

Well. It didn’t seem to know how many legs it had, or how long they should be. It had to keep jerking its head down to look, and its gait had an awkward swing to it, alongside a sort of stalling motion every two steps, whereupon it looked down and swung its gaze between its hips in apparent dismay.

“I didn’t sabotage it.” Ascelin rasped, rubbing his hand over his throat. “This is the problem — I mean for it to fix things. But it adds them, too.”

“Then what did you put into it?” Xenia walked closer, which the corpse disliked - it hissed and scrambled away from her, tripping and splashing in the water. When it fell it did not even try to get up, but kicked its way backward instead, like a child fleeing the measured gait of a furious guardian.

Ascelin watched it from the corner of his eye, but kept most of his focus on the Conductor. “I did not put in anything. That does not mean nothing entered before the body was repaired.”

“You would call this _repaired,_ Ascelin?” Xenia flicked out her wrist to indicate the shaking, hissing corpse, half-covered with keratin scales, and with eyes that flashed like lantern fire. “I can only imagine how you would have felt if this was how well I repaired _you_.”

Ascelin shut his eyes and breathed through the bait, pushed himself to his feet, didn’t ask _so why didn’t you_ _ **repair**_ _this one?_ And gave the body a cursory examination. “It seems to have remade and reinforced the ribs. That was how it died… wasn’t it?” He tilted his head. “Must have been a nasty beating.”

The Conductor turned her face toward him, eyes blazing. “Careful with that tongue.”

Ascelin stared back dispassionately and laced his hands behind him. He didn’t have it in him to pretend fear, just now; not with the squirming feeling in his gut, like someone had cut him open and stuffed an Augur of Ebrietus inside, and now it was threatening to burst out again.

When he did not respond, the Conductor turned her attention back to the body. “It’s worthless.” Xenia raised her chin and turned away her gaze. “Be rid of it.”

Ascelin eyed the reanimate, who had done nothing wrong by his measure. “Shall I have it autopsied, Maestra?”

“I only want it gone.” She stared down her nose at the corpse, and then at Ascelin, as if she were investigating him for some hint of mockery or disloyalty.

Ascelin stared back at her. He had not failed on purpose. But he could not say he was sorry to let down her hopes, either.

Xenia shook her head and turned to go. She spoke over her shoulder, on her way towards the elevator. “Dispose of it. Throw the body down a well or something.” 

Ascelin hummed and crouched beside the corpse. He reached for it, and the creature curled up on the floor, shivering. “Sure. I’ll get right on that, Maestra.”

#

It was a few hours later when Ascelin emerged from the forest. The sky was half dark, and he was bleeding from scratches on his arms and bite wounds on his neck. It seemed like whatever else had taken up residence had some property that slowed a hunter’s healing. That was — interesting. He’d have to take a sample from one of his wounds. He just… needed to make it back to the Orphanage.

His vision was spotty, which made navigation a pain. Ascelin decided he’d use the next lamp he passed by to travel, because it was just… he didn’t like them, but they were efficient.

“Choir Hunter?”

And efficient sounded really good, just then. And then he needed to go to Drogo’s house; the man was sure to be furious with him by now, and he’d be lucky if Bedelia didn’t stare daggers at him…

“Choir hunter? Are you alright?”

Needed to check on the kid, too… No, wait, first he had to take those samples-

“Sir Hunter!”

Pain blossomed in Ascelin’s legs. He looked down, but couldn’t spot any reason for it except that the ground was much closer than it should have been. And fading in and out of his vision, like someone was playing with the shadows cast by candlelight.

His eyes tried to slip shut. Ascelin crouched on the ground, wavering between awake and asleep, and wondered when he’d been dosed with a sedative. He hadn’t felt like this since-

Fuck, since he’d been human, maybe? Just keeping his eyes open was such a struggle.

Someone was touching his arm, which made him bristle. He couldn’t coordinate his limbs enough to do more than push them away. 

“Choir hunter!” They sounded unhappy. “Please! You are unwell.”

“M fine.” Ascelin insisted. “Jus’ need to sit a moment.” Maybe use the Choir Bell. He had that with him, right?… somewhere…

He was trying to find it when another wave of tiredness hit him, and he couldn’t keep above this one. He went under.

#

The world shuddered. Ascelin struggled to focus, but it was just out of his reach, a wavering awareness that things were not as they should be and he should… be doing… what about it? No… He couldn’t do anything for it. He floated in the nowhere, and felt his body try to break apart.

_Dissolve and reawaken._

In the distance there’s a bell ringing. “Carim… Carim? Ascelin? Can you hear me?”

It’s hard to place the voice. He tries to think of who it belongs to, where he is, and realizes it must be that he’s undergone some training accident. So he really had to respond, or else she might decide to leave him in the infirmary. 

He took a breath, assured her: “‘m awake.”

There’s a rough sigh. “ _Good_. What happened to you?”

… that was a good question. He remembered- teeth? Tried to open his eyes, and curled his fists. Sharp points dug into his palms. Exhale. _Focus._

“-n pain?” The voice wavered, but he thought that was- that was probably him, and not the voice. None of the women in his life are the soft sort.

He tries to make sense of why she’d be asking him about pain, and takes another breath. His ribs are screaming, and his voice comes out a whisper. “I know, Vorona. Pain is an illusion.”

The blurry shape above him leaned a little closer, and he wondered why Vorona was so pale. And then there was a hand on his shoulder, shaking him, with no claws pricking through his skin at all. The mistake hits him with the force of a hammer blow. _Not Vorona. Not-_ fuck, where is he if he’s not training? What had happened?

He stared at the pale shape until his eyes watered, until he could blink away the blurriness. It struck that he was looking at Choir robes, and not Tomb Prospector’s garb, and that the face over him was ‘far too young and too soft to be mistaken for his old teachers. Ascelin shut his eyes a moment to collect himself. Realized she’d taken off his helm, or else he’d lost it. Realized his face was exposed and had to rein himself in all over. “Sister Mercia. My apologies.”

Mercia examined him. She looked uncertain — Ascelin wanted to scold her, but he didn’t have the breath to make it convincing. So he just… laid there. Waited. It wasn’t good to be immobile near another Choir member, but it was what it was. At least it was this one. Mercia was barely a Hunter by any measure except that she dreamed.

Gently, so gently Ascelin wanted to push her away on principle (stupid uncoordinated limbs), Mercia inclined her head and spoke. “You called for someone. Were you with them?”

“Ah… no.” Ascelin exhaled. “Thought I was fourteen.” That Vorona had been his teacher stuck in his throat.

“… it’s been a while since you were fourteen, Ascelin.” Mercia touched her fingers to his cheek, and he cringed. Mercia’s soft expression softened a little more, and he hated it. “Do you want to reawaken?”

Ascelin shut his eyes. Did he want to? Absolutely. But- “The… the injuries. Something wrong, wanted to get samples before.”

Mercia nodded. “Shut your eyes. I’ll see it done.”

Ascelin didn’t want to. But he was so very tired. He couldn’t even stop her from pulling him off the ground. But there was something else of import, enough that he couldn’t sleep until it was done. It was: “… don’t… repeat the name.” Ascelin rasped, struggling to inject some urgency into his flat voice, “‘s taboo. Shouldn’t’ve… shouldn’t.”

Mercia adjusted her grip “… what name, Ascelin?”

Ascelin’s voice came out scarcely above a whisper, as much out of respect as it was hate and injury. “… Vorona. Taboo.” That part was most important. He couldn’t forget it. “Don’t repeat.”

Mercia lifted him from the ground. “… yes. I won’t.”

#

Anesthesia and incense, blood and perfume. Bleach, starch, waste-

Fire. Ascelin coughed and drew in a mouthful of air. Another. Another. Focused on the noise, the rattle of trays and the wheeze and grumble of detainees - the shift of paper, the burble of blood and saline bags.

Wondered why he hadn’t been allowed the dignity of dying and returning to the Dream, instead of this. When he could manage to speak, he muttered, “Which of you put me in the hospital? I’ll kill you.” He could feel something in his arm — he reached with his freehand to fumble around until he found the tape and needle, then worked to undo the one and withdraw the other. He needed it _out._

“That would be a lovely thank-you.” That was another Choir member. He knew the voice, he just needed- Ascelin made his eyes open, and hissed in pain. 

Conscientiously, the lights dimmed.

“What happened to you, Ascelin?” The Choir member kept her hand on the dial of the oil lamp.

Ascelin opened his eyes again, and it hurt less. He could manage that level of discomfort. “Was disposing of something. It- hmm. Wasn’t as dead as it looked.”

Her lips thinned. “You didn’t _kill it?_ ”

“I did.” Ascelin muttered, “It just. Got back up after a while.” That was turning into something of a theme this month, wasn’t it… “In my arms.” Where it had bit the shit out of him. He reached towards his neck. “Did someone get a tissue sample?”

“Yes.” The Choir member turned away from him, to shuffle papers on the nearby counter. “Angilbert took one before we healed you. What do you recollect?”

Ascelin listened to see who was nearby. It seemed like he was a few rooms away from the other patients — he almost wondered if they hadn’t put him in the morgue, then chuckled at the idea of the Hunter’s Hospital having a morgue at all. Wouldn’t it just be a tray of ashes? Maybe a collection of urns…

The woman cleared her throat. “Ascelin.”

Ah… right.

“I reanimated a test subject. The results were unsatisfactory,” Ascelin reported, touching the healing mark on his elbow, “And it injured me during disposal. Something in the saliva seemed to paralyze my healing ability: I was wounded in the forest and still bleeding when I entered the city perhaps an hour later.”

More shuffling. The scratch of a pen. His vision was trying to resolve itself, but it was slow-going.

She prompted, “And then?”

Ascelin pushed some of his hair from his face, annoyed to find it loose and damp. “And then I had so much trouble staying awake that I took a dirt-nap.”

“You didn’t die, Ascelin.” The other choir member admonished, pen still scratching away at her papers. “Don’t be dramatic.”

“Fuck you.” Ascelin shut his eyes and tried to breathe. He hoped he hadn’t stained his robes too badly. His skin crawled at the idea of people having touched him while he wasn’t aware, but — what could he do about it? Better to just move on.

“Whatever.” He wanted a bath. Another one. “Am I good to leave?”

“Was that everything you remembered?” The other member asked. She had to be one that was older than him. The ones his age knew better than to—

… What, talk to him like he was stupid? He was slipping lately. Why wouldn't they talk like that? Ascelin sunk back into the bed, eyes narrowing. “It was like someone had hit me with Blue Elixir,” he said, “But worse. That’s all I remember.”

 _Scritch scritch_.

“… if that’s all, then I suppose you needn’t stay. Come back if there’s any change, though.”

“Sure,” Ascelin lied, “Of course I will.”

Then he got up to go.

#

  
Another note for him was waiting at the entrance to the hospital, clutched in the swaying hand of a messenger.

_Don’t forget._

And below that, in the same neat script: 

_I expect to see your other project come tomorrow noon._

Ascelin grimaced and crumpled the page, aware of the consequences of failure, and furious to entertain the alternative. He had no wish to enter a battle of attrition. So he needed a way to avoid the fight entirely.

#

He stopped over in the Cathedral to buy supplies. The quartermaster side-eyed his badges — most of them were in good condition, but there was a gash in the metal of the Radiant Sword badge from his last assessment — and sold Ascelin a few cases of bullets, refills for his blood vials, and a spare lantern. 

“Did you lose yours?” The man asked, picking up a pen to make a note of everything he needed to fetch from storage. 

“Yeah, down in a tomb. Had a beast about flatten me trying to get at the light…” This was a complete fabrication, but he might need the second if things went sideways with the Conductor. Better to prep while he could and end up with extra. He drummed his fingers on the counter. “Actually, give me twenty antidotes, too.”

The quartermaster balked. “ _T_ - _twenty?”_

Ascelin wasn’t sure why. It was a perfectly reasonable amount to stock, and he didn’t know when he’d be able to come back here. He blinked and asked, “Did I stutter?”

The quartermaster paused and looked at the list he’d been taking. “I have to take down a reason for that amount?” That sounded more like a question than a statement, but, alright. Sure.

“I need to go to the woods for more specimens.” Ascelin shrugged. “Sometimes they aren’t as dead as I think, and they bite me.”

The quartermaster eyed Ascelin’s clawed gloves with a frown. “… right. Here’s your total.” He pushed the paper across the desk.

… Ow. Ascelin sighed and got out a dagger that wasn’t coated with poison. “You got a jar or something? That’s a lot.”

“No kidding.” The man frowned at him, while Ascelin loosened the laces at his wrist and peeled down the black surgical glove. 

“… Let me see if I have something. Wait a moment.”

“Definitely not going anywhere.” Ascelin agreed, his lips pursed.

The quartermaster disappeared through the storeroom door. While Ascelin was waiting, he turned to watch the hall.

Clerics were walking between duties, and he saw a few Hunters appearing for evening shifts. Curiously enough, one of them had a bunch of flowers in a bundle and was walking towards the hidden stairwell. Ascelin squinted at them. He could see… perfect clouds of vervain; the thorny leaves and flower of thistle… White heather sprinkled through the bunch, and drooping clusters of heliotrope, alongside little bunches of cheerful yellow tansy… that was… certainly a bouquet. 

Ascelin knew those plants because most of them caused some unpleasantness in humans — whether as allergens or irritants, or mild poisons. The thistle in particular — he remembered being chased away from those, once, by an adult who was faceless in his memory. Most of that memory was frustratingly hazy, but the vibrant purple of the flower he remembered very well.

He couldn’t imagine anyone would want such a bundle unless they were an apothecary or a poisoner. Then it might be valued as stock, though Ascelin was pretty sure that was not the point of bouquets: to be cut or ground or smashed into something useful. 

(He recalled, once, being offered a bundle of wolfsbane and considering it charming: the giver, another student, had not appreciated what he’d done with it. Apparently repurposing a gift into something useful was Not Done in polite society.)

( _“Of course not. You might as well have cut up his heart, Ascelin…”_

“ _What? But… what else was I supposed to do with it?”_ )

Mm. Drogomir had had a field day with that. Ascelin scratched his cheek and grimaced. Maybe it was better not to think about his time at Byrgenwerth.

The quartermaster reappeared and set a pitcher on the counter. “Can you use this?”

“Absolutely.” Ascelin turned his back on the hall and raised the knife to cut open his palm, then held it over the mouth of the pitcher.

The quartermaster looked past Ascelin while he bled, and evidentially noticed the flowers. “Oh. Someone isn’t happy.”

“Did I miss something?” Ascelin wondered.

The quartermaster shrugged his shoulder and made a low sound. “Not a floriographer, are you.”

“… no?” Ascelin took his hand back to cut the palm open again; the problem with healing so fast came when you had to pay in blood. “This enough?”

The quartermaster picked up the pitcher to give it a little shake. “Yeah, good as. I’ll get your package now.”

“Appreciate it.” Ascelin watched his wound knit shut, then pulled his glove back on. It didn't feel great to give up all that strength, but… the items were a sight more useful if the Conductor forced his hand, than the nebulous strength granted by will alone. He stashed his purchases around his robes and called, “I’m gonna take off.”

“Hmm? Have a good day. Thank you for your hard work.”

“Yeah, you too.” Ascelin padded for the Cathedral doors. Time to go bravely to his death like a man.

(That was to say, time to go tender an explanation to Drogomir about why Ascelin had dumped a kid into Bedelia’s lap and then fucked off for two days. Shit.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In general if Xenia shows up in a chapter (as she does here) it's safe to assume things are going to take an unpleasant turn, so I might just start tagging 'Xenia's in this one' at the beginning...  
> On a related note, MissMonie had nothing to say about a big patch of the scene with the resurrection and that's incredibly funny to me. "I didn't know what to say."
> 
> Research for this chapter was mostly regarding Floriography (which I went overboard on, and ended up with a silly oneshot to show for it) and guns (we dragged Gehrman a lot for using a blunderbuss when Maria has a flintlock and Ludwig has a rifle.)  
> The bouquet isn't a proper one by any stretch and its intended meaning is really character-specific, and could be summarized as "you're making my job really difficult and it's pissing me off"  
> More in-depth: Tansy is for declaring war, thistle is for warning (or nobility or endurance, but warning was the intention here), white heather is for protection, heliotrope is for devotion, vervain is "pray for me" or "protection against evil"


End file.
